Russian group Gazprom cut by 5% natural gas exports to Romania compared to planned level, on Friday, without an official notification, the Minister for Energy, Razvan Nicolescu said.
“Prognnozate gas flows to be delivered from Russia to Romania fell Friday by 5% compared to what was planned. There are small quantities we are talking about. There was no official notification on the reason this reduction has appeared,” Nicolescu said.
He added that he asked for a meeting with the gas transporter TRANSGAZ and the gas producers OMV Petrom and Romgaz.
According to the minister, the daily gas production in Romania is in this period of 30 million cubic meters, while imports are insignificant, at 0.5 million cubic meters.
“I asked TRANSGAZ to ask for explanations from Gazprom,” said Nicolescu.
Anually, Romania consumes about 12.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and produces about 11 billion cubic meters. The difference is imported from Russia, through intermediary companies at higher prices than those of domestically produced gas.
Delivery reduction for Austria, Poland and Slovakia
Austria announced late Thursday a 15% decrease in deliveries of Russian gas, after Poland and Slovakia have made similar announcements.
Bernhard Painz, a public representative of the energy regulator E-Control, has raised the hypothesis of rebuilding Russian reserves, which would have reduced the amount of gas available for export to Europe.
The reason – technical or political – of this decrease is unknown. Poland accused Russian giant Gazprom on Thursday that gas deliveries were nearly half reduced. Slovakia, too, announced a decrease in supply by 10%.
Such a measure – denied by Gazprom, in Poland, could signal Moscow intends to prevent supplying natural gas in “reverse flow” to Ukraine by Poland and Slovakia. Since June, Ukraine is not recieving Russian gas anymore.
This reduction of supply is also happening in the context the European Union is to implement new sanctions against Russia, targeting the energy sector, in particular Gazprom.