Supply is “assured”: Russia will stop gas deliveries to Austria

Russia will stop supplying gas to Austria from Saturday, announced the Austrian oil and gas group OMV, the result of a dispute with the Russian giant Gazprom.

“We were informed” by Gazprom that deliveries were going to be interrupted “tomorrow,” a spokesperson told AFP on Friday.

This decision thus puts an end to nearly six decades of dependence on the Alpine country, which still imported 90% of its gas from Russia this summer, notably via Ukraine.

“Russia is once again using energy as a weapon,” Austrian Minister of the Environment and Energy Leonore Gewessler reacted on X.

But “Austria has been preparing for this situation for a long time”, she added: the energy supply is “assured”, with “full” storage tanks and the capacity offered by gas pipelines from Italy and neighboring Germany.

The first Western company to sign a delivery contract with the Soviet Union in 1968, OMV has multiplied its sources of supply since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

Judgment favorable to OMV

This decision by Gazprom was taken in reaction to Wednesday’s announcement by OMV of an arbitration judgment giving it the right to claim 230 million euros in compensation for past supply problems.

After the invasion of Ukraine by Moscow’s troops, OMV was affected in 2022 by the reduction and then the total end of deliveries of Russian gas to Germany, via the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

The company, almost a third owned by the Austrian state, said it “expected a deterioration in its contractual relationship” with Gazprom Export, “including a potential interruption of gas supply”.

“The volume of gas potentially affected is estimated at 7,400 megawatt hours per hour, or approximately 5 terawatt hours per month,” OMV said.

afp