Slovak gas industry feels drop in Russian supply

After Russia's Gazprom on Wednesday reduced gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to 20% of its capacity, the state-owned Slovak Gas Industry (SPP) reported that it could detect the outage. While at the end of last week the supply of Russian gas to SPP increased to 50% of the agreed quantities, after the completion of a planned technical maintenance on the gas pipeline, on Wednesday the gas operators expected only 40% of the agreed volume. This according to Ondrej Šebesta, director of the SPP's corporate communication department. Gazprom has warned that it plans to cut gas supplies via Nord Stream 1 by half as of Wednesday, citing the need for further maintenance. However, the European Union has characterised the reduction of gas supplies as energy blackmail, and EU states agreed on Tuesday on measures to limit gas consumption during the upcoming winter season. In the first half of July, both the Ministry of Economy and SPP claimed that Slovakia does not have to worry about its continuous supply of gas in the upcoming heating season, as there is a sufficient amount of this raw material in the reservoirs. According to Minister of Economy Richard Sulík (SaS), supplies to industry and households should not be affected even by the EU states' agreement to limit gas consumption by 15%. However, analysts pointed out that the condition for smooth supply is the fulfillment of existing contracts for the supply of liquefied natural gas and for the supply of Norwegian gas from the North Sea.