Russian natural gas seems to continue to reach Austria, despite the fact that, on Saturday, the Gazprom group stopped deliveries to the Austrian energy group OMV, due to contractual disputes, according to data consulted by Reuters on Monday.
Slovakia is the most important transit route through which Russian gas reaches Austria and the Czech Republic through Ukraine, according to Agerpres.
According to preliminary data provided by Slovakian operator Eustream, gas deliveries from Slovakia to Austria stood at around 27 million cubic meters per day before Saturday, when Gazprom decided to stop deliveries to OMV, only to drop by around 17% on Sunday , up to 22.6 million cubic meters per day.
For Monday, scheduled deliveries from Slovakia to Austria stand at 22.3 million cubic meters, Eustream data also show. Preliminary figures indicate that about a third of that quantity has already been delivered during the morning.
Sources cited by Reuters claim that, before the stoppage of deliveries, OMV received approximately 17 million cubic meters of gas per day from Gazprom, and these volumes found new buyers or intermediaries in Europe, who stepped in and bought the unsold gas.
For now, it is not clear who buys these gases and, possibly, resells the volumes that were previously delivered to OMV.
Gazprom said on Saturday it had halted supplies to OMV after the Austrian company threatened to withhold some of the money it owes the Russian group as compensation for an arbitration tribunal ruling that ruled in favor of OMV in a dispute contract with Gazprom.
Significant volumes of Russian natural gas are still sold to Slovakia and Hungary, as well as the Czech Republic, which does not have a direct contract with Gazprom. Also, smaller volumes reach Italy and Serbia.
Separately, since October 1, gas deliveries from Slovakia to the Czech Republic have increased dramatically to 74% of total Czech imports, even though Czech firms do not have contracts with Gazprom.
Traders and analysts interviewed by Reuters say that this gas could come from Russia and be delivered via the Turkstream pipeline or Ukraine. This gas may be in surplus because gas storages are full and also it is cheaper to ship gas to the Czech Republic than gas from the West because of a tax imposed by Germany that makes gas transit more expensive.
Two major Czech gas buyers told Reuters that they do not buy Russian gas. But one of those buyers, as well as an energy market analyst, said trading partners of Czech companies could buy gas from the market and deliver it to customers in the east.