Reuters: Austria Halts Half-Century-Long Ties With Gazprom

• 25.11.2024, 19:10

The impetus for this was the arrest of Russian gas.

After more than 50 years of ties, Austria has halted cooperation with Gazprom. The impetus for this was the seizure of Russian gas.

This is reported byReuters.

The impetus that stopped more than 50 years of gas flows from Russian state energy giant Gazprom to Austria's OMV group earlier this month was the seizure of Russian gas as payment to cover the cost of an arbitration award.

Earlier this month, OMV said it had won an arbitration in Germany against Gazprom for 230 million euros over irregular deliveries to its German unit, and would take steps to immediately enforce the claim against Gazprom's invoices.

Three days later, Gazprom stopped supplying gas to the Austrian company.

According to three anonymous sources close to Gazprom and OMV, the Austrian company has frozen gas supplies for October worth 230 million euros.

This is the first time that a client from the European Union has failed to pay Gazprom for gas.

The cessation of supplies last week gives OMV the opportunity to claim that Gazprom has violated contracts, one of the five sources said.

According to the publication, Gazprom, in turn, allegedly regards the seizure of gas as non-payment and therefore stopped supplies.

OMV has been buying Soviet and Russian gas since 1968, and events have shown that the Austrian company is looking for ways to completely stop buying Russian gas, despite the fact that its contracts with Gazprom are valid until 2040.