Austrian importer OMV Marketing und Trading stopped receiving gas from Gazprom Export from 6:00 local time on November 16, Reuters reported, citing the energy company.
“We can confirm that there have been no gas deliveries since 6:00 a.m. today,” an OMV spokesman said.
According to Reuters, Russia’s notice of ending gas supplies to Austria came as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany held their first phone conversation since December 2022.
“It was emphasized that Russia has always strictly fulfilled its treaty and contractual obligations in the energy sector and is ready for mutually beneficial cooperation if the German side shows interest in this,” the Kremlin said.
Russia shipped some 15 billion cubic meters of gas via Ukraine in 2023, about 8% of peak Russian gas flows to Europe via various routes in 2018-2019, according to data compiled by Reuters.
Germany and other European Union countries have imposed repeated sanctions on Russia over the special military operation in Ukraine while struggling to reduce their reliance on Russia’s vital and affordable oil and gas supplies, instead turning to expensive imports from the US.
On Ukraine, the Kremlin said Putin’s stance was the one that he stated in June when he said that the war could end if Kyiv gave up its NATO ambitions and handed over the entirety of four regions claimed by Russia. Ukraine rejected those conditions as tantamount to surrender while continuing to depend heavily on international aid and funding.
According to the head of the Austrian regulator E-Control, Alfons Haber, the volume of supplies to the country after the suspension of Russian gas imports fell by 12-15%.
According to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG), the incoming flow through the Baumgarten gas hub remained unchanged. The pumping volume was 10.4 GWh per hour around 1 million cubic meters per hour. The terminal is the country’s largest gas hub.
