The suspension of Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine due to Kiev's refusal to renew the agreement comes at a time when European natural gas reserves are running out faster than usual, claims the Greek news portal newmoney.gr.
According to it, “the expiration of the agreement on the transit of Russian gas via Ukraine marks the almost complete loss of Moscow's once strong influence on the European gas market and comes at a critical moment, as reserves in Europe are running out faster than usual, making it difficult to fulfill gas storage tasks for the next season.“ The interruption of supplies via Ukraine is expected to be a serious blow to Moldova, the portal believes. Among the EU countries, Slovakia will suffer the most. Hungary will continue to receive Russian natural gas through the "Turkish Stream" pipeline, although it wanted to maintain transit through Ukraine.
For its part, Kiev, due to the suspension of transit, will lose about 800 million USD per year in payments from Moscow. "Gazprom" will lose about 5 billion USD from the sale of natural gas to Europe through Ukraine. "This development of events marks the almost complete loss of Russia's primacy in the European natural gas market," the portal believes. “Other buyers of Russian gas, such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria, have arranged alternative supplies and analysts expect little impact on the market from the disruption of Russian gas supplies.“
The publication believes that the suspension of transit is of great geopolitical importance, “as Russia loses dominance in gas supplies to EU countries to such competitors as the US, Qatar and Norway“. But for Europe too, the loss of supplies of cheap Russian natural gas has had serious consequences, contributing to a significant slowdown in economic growth, rising inflation and rising living costs. As Europe struggles to find alternative energy sources, the loss of Russian gas has exacerbated long-term concerns about the decline in its global competitiveness and, in particular, Germany's industrial future.
On the morning of January 1, the transit of Russian gas to Europe through the territory of Ukraine was completely stopped due to Kiev's refusal to renew the agreement. Earlier, "Gazprom" reported that the Ukrainian side's refusal to extend the agreement on the transit of Russian gas through its territory to Europe deprived the Russian holding of the technical and legal opportunity to supply fuel along this route, and therefore at 08:00 Moscow time on January 1, pumping was stopped. Data from European gas transport operators also confirm the completion of supplies to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy and Moldova in this direction.
At the same time, fuel flows through the station on the border of Turkey and Bulgaria (a land extension of TurkStream) remain stable, which for now is a signal of the lack of redirection of part of Russian gas supplies to Europe along this route. Earlier, experts noted that "Gazprom" has the opportunity to increase pumping to Europe by 4-6 billion cubic meters per year through the TurkStream gas pipelines and "Blue Stream", whose capacity can be increased in a relatively short time thanks to their configuration. However, there is no talk of a complete reorientation of the flows.