Russia’s Gazprom to Supply Extra Gas to Hungary and China This Winter

Hungary Today 2023.10.24.

Russia’s Gazprom Group will supply extra gas to Hungary and China this winter, CEO Alexey Miller announced on Sunday, Világgazdaság writes, citing Russia’s TASS/ASS agency. Based on the CEO’s report, Gazprom has committed to additional deliveries on top of its contractual obligations, so far supplying 1.3 billion cubic meters of gas to Hungary and 600 million cubic meters more to China.

Gazprom is trying to compensate for the loss of European markets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Last year’s explosion of Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea also plays a role. The authorities have still not found out who was responsible for the incident.

CEO Alexey Miller was part of the large group of businessmen who accompanied Russian President Vladimir Putin to his meeting in China last week.

Hungary is the only member of the European Union whose leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has maintained “friendly relations” with Putin since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and is also a member of NATO.

Apart from the obvious states of Austria and Slovakia, Germany has continued its gas deals with Russia, and the United States of America has bought unprecedented amounts of uranium from the Russians, but the list of examples is endless if the aim is to recall the West’s economic relations with Russia.

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While a Reuters article links the Gazprom CEO’s recent announcement to Viktor Orbán’s visit to China and presents it as the result of a brief meeting with Putin there, the fact is that the announcement may be the result of an earlier deal.

In fact, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, announced at the end of August that more gas could arrive in Hungary via Serbia from September onwards, on top of the volume already contracted and even more than the extra volume in August, on the basis of the agreement signed with Russia’s Gazprom.

Fact

Hungary has already done a lot to be able to source gas from as many places as possible such as Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Qatar, as this is what the government means by diversification, not by replacing one existing source with another.

As Hungary Today wrote earlier, in September, news broke that Hungary may be supplied with natural gas from the north due to the construction of a new LNG terminal in Gdansk, Poland. The two countries have already reached a political agreement on this matter.

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Via Világgazdaság, Featured image via Pixabay