Finland’s state-owned energy company Gasum announced on Friday (20) that Russian state-owned Gazprom will stop supplying natural gas to the country this Saturday (21).
The official justification is that Gasum refused to pay for Russian exports of the fuel in rubles, the same reason why Gazprom stopped supplying Bulgaria and Poland.
However, the move is seen as Moscow’s retaliation for Finland and Sweden’s request to join NATO, the Western military alliance, presented this week.
“It is highly regrettable that the supply of natural gas under our contract is now discontinued,” Gasum Chief Executive Mika Wiljanen said in a statement reproduced by the Washington Post.
“However, we have been carefully preparing for this situation and, as long as there are no interruptions in the natural gas transport network, we will be able to supply natural gas to all our customers in the coming months,” he added.
Gasum said it will now source the fuel through the Balticconnector pipeline, which links Finland to Estonia and provides access to natural gas from Latvia. Although most of the natural gas consumed by Finland comes from Russia, this type of fuel only accounts for about 5% of the Nordic country’s energy consumption.
Last week, RAO Nordic Oy, the European arm of Russian energy company Inter RAO, had already announced that it had cut electricity supplies to Finland, citing non-payment.
#Russia #cut #natural #gas #supplies #Finland #Saturday