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After the successful completion of the annual maintenance works, natural gas supplies to Hungary through the TurkStream pipeline have resumed, and storage is proceeding on schedule for the winter period, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in Saint Petersburg on Thursday – MTI reported.
According to the ministry’s statement, Péter Szijjártó said that maintenance work has been successfully completed, and the Russian side had restarted the TurkStream at the beginning of the week, with transit now reaching the normal scheduled volume. Thus, the government’s storage efforts will be successful again this year. The Minister noted that the TurkStream is the main source of natural gas for Hungary.
“The replenishment of Hungarian gas storage facilities for the winter period is well on track,”
he underlined.
The Minister pointed out that the volume of gas in Hungarian storage already covers more than 37 percent of the country’s annual consumption, while the average in Europe is just over 21 percent.
“So we are well above the European level of storage and much better prepared for the winter period than the European average,” he said. “Whatever winter comes in Hungary, we will not even have to consider any kind of restrictions on the use of natural gas,” he added.
Szijjártó stressed that “it is time for everyone to finally realize and understand that the issue of energy supply is not an ideological or even a political issue, but a matter of hard physical reality.”
If we cut ourselves off from Russia’s resources, Hungary’s energy supply would become physically impossible,
so it is still in our interest to maintain reasonable energy cooperation with Russia,” he said, noting that this is not prohibited by European sanctions.
The minister was attending the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, where he discussed energy issues with Gazprom’s top manager Aleksandr Dyukov. He also met Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and the head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev.
Via MTI, Featured photo: Pixabay