Earlier in the evening, Gazprom also informed Poland that the country will no longer receive gas because it refuses to pay its bill in rubles.
15% of Russian gas comes to Europe via this route. In the afternoon, the transport of gas through Gazprom via one of the four pipelines to European customers came to a halt, shocking Poland and Europe.
The gas price briefly rose 18% to €107 per megawatt hour on Tuesday during the day on the news of the shutdown. The Dutch futures contract TTF, which determines the European market, still recorded an almost 7% increase to €99 per megawatt hour when Gazprom opened the tap slightly afterwards.
Last Friday, President Putin’s ultimatum expired, in which he demanded that Europe pay Russian gas supplies in the Russian ruble from now on. It is unclear whether there is a direct connection.
The Polish government, like other European countries, has refused that payment and is sticking to the agreed payments in euros and dollars. The Polish government has a long-term contract with Gazprom until the end of this year, good for 9.9 billion cubic meters of gas, and 63% of its energy needs.
Poland recently announced that it would stop using Russian gas this year. It claims that the storage facilities will be sufficiently filled for this purpose and that the supply of electricity will be guaranteed.
Big raise
The country will replace Russian gas imports with Norwegian gas once the Baltic pipeline is completed in October. It connects the Polish, Danish and Norwegian gas networks and can supply 10 billion cubic meters per year.
The blockade from Russia has been confirmed by PGNiG, Poland’s state gas company. There will be no gas from the Yamal pipeline to Poland before Wednesday, it says.
Sanctions uncertain
Europe is implementing a series of joint sanctions against Russia over President Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine. The European Union is also weighing a number of additional measures, including an import ban on all crude oil from Russia, a rich source of income for Putin in his warfare. An import ban on all coal from Russia was previously announced.
Full agreement has not yet been reached in Brussels on the European oil sanction. An import ban on gas cannot yet count on broad support in the European Union. Countries in Eastern Europe and Germany in particular are too dependent on this raw material for this.
However, many EU Member States, including the Netherlands, are rapidly voluntarily saying goodbye to Russian raw materials. To fill that gap, they are importing more liquefied gas (LNG) and increasing their investments in more sustainable energy sources from solar and wind.