Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have said they are receiving less Russian gas than set in contracts. Gazprom assures that there have been no reductions of gas supply, Vedomosti reports.
Italian gas operator Snam said that Russian gas reaches the state through only one point, the Alpine City of Tarvisio. 97.8 million cubic meters of gas were received on Tuesday, 96.2 million on Wednesday. Italians expected 8 and 13% more gas than received, respectively. Gazprom considers the figures unofficial.
Martin Khalupski, a spokesman of RWE Transgas, said that the Cezch Republic notices lacks of gas as well. The same doubts were expressed by SPP (Slovakia), Poland and Hungary (Dow Jones figures). Russian gas supply of Italy, Poland and Slovakia dropped by 810%, as Dow Jones reports. The countries did not suffer from gas shortages, using their gas reserves.
Europe recalls the “gas war” of Russia and Ukraine in January 2009. But there are no such expectations this year.
Gazprom said that it was fulfilling gas supply according to contracts, despite increase of domestic gas consumption.
Two gas officials believe that Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and the Czech Republic may be the ones taking more gas. At least 89 people there were frozen to death, Reuters reports.
Vestnik Kavkaza said that Russia hit a record of over 2 billion cubic meters of gas consumed in one day. Bulgaria and Serbia consume such amount annually. Russia consumed 2016.5 million cubic meters of gas on January 28. A record of 613.1 million cubic meters was taken from gas reservoirs.
