Russia Stops Gas Flow to Austria in Payment Dispute
Russia’s Gazprom halted natural gas supplies to Austria on Saturday in a payment dispute, marking another reduction in Moscow’s dwindling energy ties with Europe nearly three years after the Ukraine invasion.
Austrian utility OMV said deliveries stopped at 6 a.m. (0500 GMT) after it moved to offset a 230 million euro ($242 million) arbitration award against Gazprom by withholding payments for current gas supplies.
Austria’s energy regulator E-Control said prices and supplies to Austrian customers remained steady. The country gets up to 98% of its gas from Russia as of December last year, according to Energy Minister Lenore Gewessler.
Gazprom maintained its daily flow of 42.4 million cubic meters to Europe via Ukraine, with Slovakia’s state-owned SPP reporting continued deliveries and increased purchases by other buyers.
The dispute comes as the Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline through Ukraine, one of Russia’s last major gas routes to Europe, faces closure at year-end. Ukraine does not plan to extend the five-year transit agreement that supplies gas to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Austria.
Russia has lost most of its European gas market since 2022, when it cut supplies citing payment disputes — a move European leaders called energy blackmail over their support for Ukraine. The Nord Stream pipeline to Germany was later destroyed in explosions.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer sought to reassure the public about winter supplies, with OMV saying its storage is more than 90% full. Europe has increasingly turned to alternative suppliers, including US and Qatari liquefied natural gas.
Without Austria, significant Russian gas supplies to Europe will flow only to Hungary and Slovakia, with Hungary receiving deliveries via Turkey. Russian gas transit through Ukraine in 2023 has fallen to about 8% of peak flows in 2018-2019.
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