Russian gas, a key source of energy for Germany and many other EU economies, has continued to flow through Ukraine’s pipelines since President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade in February.
But in a statement late Tuesday, the Ukrainian gas transmission operator said it had decided to suspend operations at a major transit point due to “occupation intervention”. The Sokhranovka metering station processes up to 32.6 million cubic meters a day, or about a third of the Russian gas that passes through Ukraine to Europe, the operator said.
It says Russian intervention, including unauthorized gas diversion, has “endangered the stability and security” of the system. Ukraine said gas volumes could be moved instead to the Sudja transit point west of the territory it controls.
Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom said in a statement that such a reconfiguration would be “technically impossible”, adding that it saw no reason to suspend it.
“Transit through Sohranovka was fully secured, there were no complaints from contractors and there are none,” the statement said in its official Telegram channel. Gazprom fully fulfills all its obligations to European consumers, supplies gas for transit in accordance with the contract and the agreement with the operator, transit services are fully paid.
In a separate statement issued by Reuters, Gazprom said volumes delivered to Europe via Ukraine on Wednesday fell by about 25% from Tuesday’s levels.
Oil prices, which fell about 9% on Friday, were higher than the news. Crude Brent and US oil traded about 3% on Wednesday. US natural gas prices rose 5% on Tuesday and another 1% early on Wednesday.
“The threat of gas interruptions in Europe seems to be driving a sharp rise in oil in Asia today,” wrote Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA. “All bets are rejected for inflation if Russian gas is cut off for Europe.
Last month, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, drastically escalating its response to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
Gazprom has said it has completely cut off supplies to Polish gas company PGNiG and Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz after they refused to comply with Moscow’s request to pay in rubles instead of euros or dollars.
The European Commission has described this as an attempt at “extortion”.
– Alex Stambo, Nathan Hodge and Julia Horowitz contributed to this article.
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