Gazprom has stopped its gas supplies to OMV and thus to Austria. What sounds like a hard cut can actually be misleading. The so-called “gas supply freeze” is not actually a gas supply freeze – it is simply the loss of certain privileges.
Russian state-owned company Gazprom has stopped supplying natural gas to Austrian OMV for a week. But this is not an actual delivery stop. A similar amount of Russian gas continues to arrive at the Austrian-Slovak border in Baumgarten as before.
So what has changed? We imagine a huge metaphorical package. So far it arrived with a huge label at the gas roundabout in Baumgarten, Lower Austria. It said: only for OMV! This label has now been angrily taken down by the Kremlin. The domestic energy company has, as it were, lost its pre-emptive rights. In short: the only thing that has changed is the way the gas is sold.
Russian gas still reaches us
Until now, most of the Russian gas flowing into Austria went to OMV under a contract that has existed since 1968. But after the domestic energy company announced that it would deduct the compensation from the monthly gas bill, Gazprom stopped deliveries under this supply contract on November 16. Gazprom now sells this gas on the stock exchange or to intermediaries.
It is therefore likely that Russian gas will end up in our storage facilities via a circuitous route. An example: Slovakia buys from Baumgarten, OMV then buys from Slovakia. Where Bratislava now stands, there is only Kremlin.
Observers still see the fact that OMV no longer receives gas directly from Gazprom as the “beginning of the end” of the long-standing supply contract, which was extended in 2018 until 2040. OMV itself does not want to comment on this. “We cannot comment on our legal strategy or ongoing legal proceedings,” it said in response to questions.
However, it is an open secret that they want to get rid of the contract with Gazprom, which includes a purchasing obligation. OMV aims to produce its own gas from its Neptun Deep project in Romania’s Black Sea by 2027. Moreover, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all EU countries agreed to phase out Russian gas by 2027. This could happen sooner…
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
