This had already been expected in Austria, but now it has happened: Russia has announced that it will stop its gas deliveries to the country from Saturday. The background is apparently a legal dispute.
Russia will stop its gas deliveries to Austria from Saturday. This was announced by the partially state-owned Austrian energy company OMV.
There is no official statement from Moscow. The background is likely to be a legal dispute: OMV was awarded 230 million euros by an arbitration tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce in a dispute with the Russian energy giant Gazprom. Until this amount is reached, OMV considers the gas delivered from Russia to have been paid for.
Austria considers itself well prepared
In response, OMV was already expecting a complete stop to deliveries from Russia. That has now happened – but the company considers itself well prepared for such a scenario.
According to the E-Control authority, which is responsible for regulating gas and electricity in Austria, the country is no longer dependent on Russian gas. Although Austria still covered an average of 80 percent of its gas needs from Russian sources this year, Austria was one of the few countries in the EU that would still receive gas from Russia in 2024. In the meantime, other potential delivery routes have been found, said the board of E-Control, Alfons Haber, to the dpa news agency. The supply of liquid gas from Germany is possible. In addition, the gas storage facilities in Austria are 90 percent full.
The entire gas market is affected
The entire gas market in Austria is affected by the delivery stop, as OMV is Gazprom's only contractual partner in the country and accepts all deliveries at the Baumgarten junction on the Slovakian border.
