Rusland levert minder gas naar EU in verband met koud weer (en)
BRUSSELS - Gazprom has begun cutting gas supplies to the EU in order to meet higher demand in Russia caused by severe cold weather.
Italy said on Tuesday (31 January) that volumes dropped by 10 percent but that its underground gas reserves are 65 percent full and that it can pull in extra volumes from Algeria, the Netherlands, Norway and liquid gas markets.
"It is not a crisis ... there is no shortage of gas in Italy," European Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzener told EUobserver on Wednesday morning.
She noted that gas flows are so far "normal" in EU countries which depend more heavily on Russia, such as Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. She also said Gazprom expects to increase output "in just a couple of days."
Winter temperatures fell below minus 30 degrees Celsius at night in eastern Europe at the weekend and are forecast to stay low all week.
The weather has killed dozens of people: about 30 in Ukraine; 15 in Poland; eight in Romania; five in Bulgaria; three in Serbia; and one in the Czech Republic. The dead are mostly homeless and old people. But in the Czech Republic, the victim was a 26-year-old man found in a field.
The Italy gas cut is a reminder of EU vulnerability to the Kremlin-run Gazprom.
A price dispute between Russia and Ukraine - Gazprom's main transit route to the Union - in the winter of 2009/2010 caused massive shortages in former Communist EU members.
The two sides met on January 16 in a fresh dispute which also threatens to get nasty.
Russia wants Ukraine to pay $416 per thousand cubic metres of gas and to buy at least 52 billion cubic metres (bcm) a month under a January 2010 contract. But Ukraine is reportedly aiming for $250 and 27 bcm.
The talks have a geopolitical dimension.
The EU and US have since the Orange Revolution in 2004 been trying to pull Ukraine into their sphere of influence.
But Russia wants it to quit the so-called European Energy Community and to abandon a draft EU free trade agreement in favour of joining a Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan customs union. It is also keen to gain control of Ukraine's pipeline network - a strategic asset.
Gazprom last Friday fortified its negotiating position by saying it will start construction on its South Stream pipeline in December 2012 - one year earlier than planned.
South Stream is designed to bypass Ukraine, potentially ruining its economy.
"If, as one hears in Ukraine, the gas transport system is a historical treasure, its place, apparently, is in a museum," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said last week.