Natural gas: Russia could cut off deliveries to Denmark and the Netherlands
Ørsted said it had no legal obligation to pay in rubles in its contract with Russian state energy giant Gazprom and that the payment deadline is Tuesday, May 31. It would continue to pay in euros, it said in a statement.
“There is a risk that Gazprom Export will stop supplying gas to Ørsted… this will be a breach of contract,” Ørsted said in a statement.
The company said it had prepared for an abrupt break to its Russian gas imports, and had been filling up storage facilities in Denmark and Germany.
GasTerra said Gazprom will “discontinue” its gas deliveries beginning on Tuesday. That means that about 2 billion cubic meters of contracted gas will go undelivered between now and the start of October.
GasTerra said it had prepared for this scenario by buying gas from other sources.
About 4% of Denmark’s total energy consumption, and around 2% of the Netherlands’, comes from Russian gas, according to Bruegel, an economic think tank.
Since then, Gazprom has offered customers a solution. Buyers could make euro or dollar payments into an account at Russia’s Gazprombank, which would then convert the funds into rubles and transfer them to a second account from which the payment to Russia would be made.
GasTerra said in a statement that it would not comply with Gazprom’s “one-sided payment requirements.”
— Robert North contributed reporting.
