Russia stops supplying gas to Finland, Austria opens a ruble account

According to The Guardian, Finnish natural gas transmission system operator Gasgrid confirmed that Russian gas imports through the Imatra port have stopped. Imatra is the transit point for Russian gas into Finland.

Gazprom Export has asked European countries to pay for gas to Russia in rubles, because the country is under sanctions due to attack Ukraine but Finland refused.

Finland’s state-owned gas wholesaler Gasum yesterday warned that the gas flow will stop at 4am GMT on May 21. Currently, Gasum has confirmed “the natural gas supply to Finland, through Gasum’s supply contracts, has been cut off. Starting today, during the upcoming summer, Gasum supplies only natural gas. to customers via the Balticconnector pipeline”. Balticconnector links Finland to neighboring Estonia’s gas network.

Most of the gas used in Finland comes from Russia, but gas only accounts for about 5% of the country’s annual energy consumption.

Finland, along with neighboring Sweden, last week applied to join NATO after public and political support for the alliance skyrocketed. Moscow once warned Finland that joining NATO would be a serious mistake, with great consequences. Last month, Moscow cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland after they refused to comply with the new payment terms.

Also related to the Russian gas supply issue, the Austrian oil and gas group OMV said yesterday that it had opened a ruble account at Gazprombank to pay for gas imports from Russia. Austria claims that its work does not violate any European Union (EU) ban against Moscow. Austria imports 80% of its gas needs from Russia.

Faced with a ban on transactions in euros and dollars, Moscow has introduced a new mechanism for unfriendly countries to pay for gas. Accordingly, countries imposing sanctions on Russia will have to set up an account at Gazprombank, where payments in the currency of their choice will be converted into Rubles for the final payment. As of May 12, 20 European companies have opened such accounts.

Finland, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria, the UK, Slovenia and some Baltic countries have refused to pay under this new mechanism. For his part, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will not provide free natural gas to countries that do not respect this new payment mechanism.

According to an update, Germany and Italy have informed companies that they can open rubles accounts to pay for gas purchased from Russia without violating sanctions. Reuters quoted two sources in Italy and Germany as saying that Brussels had previously issued two sets of written instructions to guide the purchase of gas from Russia without violating sanctions.

Hoai Linh