MOSCOW, April 1 (Reuters) - Russian energy giant Gazprom 's average daily natural gas supplies to Europe rose 4.5% in March from February levels and by almost 26% from the same month of 2023, Reuters calculations showed on Monday.

The calculations, based on data from the European gas transmission group Entsog and Gazprom's daily reports on gas transit via Ukraine, showed that average daily pipeline exports reached 88.7 million cubic metres (mcm) last month from 84.9 mcm in February.

This was also up from 70.3 mcm in March 2023.

Gazprom's natural gas exports to Europe so far this year have reached about 7.74 billion cubic metres (bcm).

Europe was once Russia's primary export market, but it has received far less Russian gas as a result of the political response to the conflict in Ukraine.

Gazprom has instead increased gas sales to China, whose pipeline gas imports from Russia rose to 22.7 billion cubic metres in 2023, nearly 1.5 times more than the 15.4 bcm shipped in 2022.

Russia supplied a total of around 63.8 bcm of gas to Europe by various routes in 2022, according to Gazprom data and Reuters calculations. The volume decreased further, by 55.6%, to 28.3 bcm last year.

At their peak in 2018-2019, annual flows to the region reached 175-180 bcm.

Gazprom has not published its own monthly statistics since the start of 2023. It did not respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Oksana Kobzeva; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Barbara Lewis)