With its impressive production capacity, the EU countries consume a huge amount of energy, 25% of which is generated by natural gas (450-480 billion m 3). At the same time, the demand for gas in the EU continues to grow due to low prices, the growth of energy intensity of residential heating, and the recovery of economic growth in a number of countries. To determine the trends in the gas market, the article reviews the factors that influence the internal gas consumption of the European Union. It was revealed that due to the depletion of its own resources, as well as a decrease in gas production at the largest in Europe field "Groningen", the volume of domestic gas production, in the period from 2001 to 2018, decreased by 2 times. The paper defines the share of Russian gas in the EU market, which amounted to more than 34% and the objective prerequisites for its increase in the next 2-3 years. The study concluded that the forecasts of experts on a significant increase in the volume of supplies of American liquefied natural gas to the EU countries have not been confirmed. At the same time, the share of Russian LNG, after the successful launch of the Yamal LNG project, is constantly growing. In addition, in the current context of the struggle for markets, digitalization of the gas industry is seen as an opportunity to improve the efficiency of management and operation of technological systems, which should help to reduce costs, and ideally prices for end users.