Russia halted gas supplies to Austria. But volumes supplied to Europe remain unchanged

Since Saturday, when Russia’s Gazprom announced it was suspending gas supplies to Austria, nominations from the east have remained stable. The Russian company was responding to Austria’s suspension of payments, which it decided to withhold in order to enforce a claim awarded in arbitration.

Russian gas exports to Europe via Ukraine remain stable for now, and nominations for flows to Austria from Slovakia have also remained unchanged. This is despite the fact that Russia’s state-owned Gazprom officially stopped supplyingnatural gas to Austria on Saturday morning. The gas producer was responding to a move by OMV, which suspended payments to Gazprom in order to recover the amount awarded to it in arbitration. Reuters reports.

It is unclear exactly where the volumes of gas intended for OMV were redirected. Gazprom said it would send 42.4 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Wednesday, the same volume as on Tuesday. This suggests that entities in European countries must have bought it.

Slovak state-owned company SPP said it was still taking gas from Russia and suggested that others were buying more, as there was still “strong demand” for Russian gas in Europe.

OMV informed the markets of Gazprom’s de facto suspension of supplies on the Central European Gas Hub platform, saying that Gazprom had told it supplies would be reduced to zero from 06:00 CET on Saturday. According to Reuters, this could mark the end of the last remaining Russian gas supplies to the European Union.

Allocations, or nominations for flows to Austria from Slovakia, were stable compared with Tuesday’s levels, at approximately 13% below those recorded before the suspension of gas supplies from Russia to OMV. Nominations to the Czech Republic from Slovakia were in line with levels observed this month.

Nominations for gas flows from Ukraine to Slovakia were stable compared with previous days, while nominations for flows from Slovakia also changed little, according to data from transmission system operator Eustream.

An arbitration tribunal awarded OMV compensation of 230 million euros (CZK 5.8 billion). The Austrian company had sought compensation for irregular gas supplies and for the complete suspension of supplies to Germany in August 2022. OMV is also involved in several other disputes with the Russian state-owned company.