All the accusations that Russia and Gazprom are delivering insufficient amount of gas to the European market and deliberately causing natural gas shortages are absolutely baseless, unacceptable and untrue – in other words, a pack of lies, Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov claims as quoted by Russian media.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also blasted Western leaders for their false accusations against Moscow for rising gas prices.
According to Kupriyanov, Gazprom – under the terms of existing contracts – is ready at any time to deliver additional gas volumes to Europe.
He pointed that the costs of these supplies would be lower than spot market prices for natural gas in Europe that last week topped $2,150 per thousand cubic meters for the first time ever, climbing to nearly $210 per megawatt-hour in household terms.
In comparison, the average price Gazprom offers in contracts to European countries is less than $300 per thousand cubic meters, Kupriyanov said, adding that it’s the Europeans that create all problems in Western Europe.
Stressing that this year Gazprom delivered 50.2 billion cubic meters of gas, 5.3% more than in 2020, Kupriyanov noted that some countries, like Germany and France, have not submitted requests for additional supplies despite pumping out the gas volumes they had contracted for 2021.
He added that supply volumes delivered in 2021 to Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Denmark, among others, also exceeded the figures recorded last year.
The Russian government and Gazprom have been repeatedly blamed by some European officials for the current energy crisis, especially after last week’s stoppage of gas shipments through the Yamal-Europe pipeline after Germany failed to book additional shipments via the route.
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