LNG

Slovakia, the land-locked European Union member most dependent on Russian natural gas, has signed a liquefied natural gas supply deal with US major ExxonMobil Corp, and will receive the volumes via import facilities in Italy and Croatia.

The LNG supply agreement has been signed with the main Slovakian energy company, Slovenský Plynárenský Priemysel (SPP).

“A contract with a strategic partner like ExxonMobil opens new opportunities in access to natural gas and LNG,” said SPP in a statement without mentioning volumes nor prices

SPP also explained that gas transportation arrangements to the land-locked central European country had been secured from LNG terminals in Italy and Croatia.

Slovakia uses around 5 billion cubic metres of natural gas per annum and has mostly received Russian pipeline supplies from Gazprom that had to transit through Ukraine.

The EU nation is one of the countries most affected among the 27-member EU bloc as it had also previously relied on Russia for more than 85 percent of its gas.

Analysts noted that two-thirds of Slovakia’s oil has also come from Russia and meant the Slovakians had been opposed to more packages of sanctions cutting Russian supplies.

Polish pipeline

Earlier in September Slovakia was also able to have a guarantee of pipeline natural gas via Poland.

LNG importer Poland inaugurated a new natural gas pipeline interconnector between Poland and Slovakia as part of EU funding to help create a Polish gas hub supplying central and northeast EU countries.

The latest pipeline connects the gas networks of the two countries and will ensure supply delivery to comply with the EU strategy of diversifying routes.

The completion of the pipeline is a small part of an EU plan to create a North-South gas infrastructure corridor between the Baltic Sea, the Adriatic and Aegean Seas, the eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

The Poland-Slovakia pipeline with a total length of 165 kilometres (103 miles) was an EU Project of Common and received more than €100 million ($99.6M) of EU funding through the Connecting Europe Facility and which represented around 40 percent of the project’s costs.

The EU gas network had previously supported flows between the Russian Federation and Western Europe before the Ukraine invasion in mid-February 2022. 

April 28 (LNGJ) - Russian natural gas company Gazprom issued a statement from its headquarters in Saint Petersburg saying it had halted gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland over their refusal to pay for their gas in Russian roubles. “Gazprom has completely suspended gas supplies to Bulgargaz and PGNiG (Polish Oil and Gas Company) due to absence of payments in roubles,” said the Gazprom statement. “Payments for gas supplied from April 1 must be made in roubles using the new payments details, about which the counterparties were informed in a timely manner,” added Gazprom.

   Poland and other members of the 27-nation European Union have refused to pay for their natural gas in roubles as Russia has demanded as a way of stabilizing and supporting the rouble, which has been weakened by Western sanctions. Poland's PGNiG said in a statement it would continue to monitor the situation and was prepared to obtain gas from other connections. Bulgaria's Energy Ministry said state gas company Bulgargaz had received a similar notice from Gazprom. Bulgaria is almost completely dependent on Gazprom for its gas supplies.

Algeria has said that it was preparing to sign a new pipeline natural gas supply agreement with Italy for around 9 billion cubic metres per annum.

Nord Stream AG, the natural gas pipeline company for the Russia-to-Germany Nord Steam I Pipeline, one of the main competitors to LNG, will temporarily shut down both lines of its system for routine maintenance for 10 days, starting today.