Austria confiscated €230 million worth of Russian gas. This is the first case when a client from the European Union did not pay “Gazprom” for gas.
Reuters writes about this with reference to sources.
This was preceded by an arbitration court ruling that “Gazprom Export” must pay damages of €230 million with interest to the Austrian gas company OMV due to irregular supplies and a complete cessation of supplies to Germany in September 2022.
The company understood that “Gazprom” was unlikely to pay this fine, so it stopped paying for Russian gas in October, seeing it as a payment to cover the cost of the arbitration award.
Three days after the publication of the courtʼs decision, on November 16, “Gazprom” declared that it would stop supplying gas to OMV.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Neghammer assured that the country is ready for this.
"Austria has prepared well for the loss of Russian gas. Gas storage facilities are in place and supplies are reliable. The republic has a strategic reserve that can compensate for the shortage. We cannot be blackmailed!" he declared.
However, the cooperation between the Austrian and Russian companies, which existed since 1968, would end already in 2025: at the end of this year, the transit contract for the supply of Russian natural gas through a pipeline through Ukraine and Slovakia expires. And Ukraine has already declared that it will not extend the transit agreement with the Russian state-owned “Gazprom” in order to deprive Russia of the profits that finance the war against Ukraine.
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