Hungary signs 10-year gas supply deal with Shell
Hungary, which relies heavily on Moscow as a gas supplier, signed a new supply contract with British energy giant Shell on Tuesday, despite insisting it’s not seeking alternatives to Russia.
The Central European country has remained one of the Kremlin’s closest partners in the European Union despite the invasion of Ukraine and has resisted calls to reduce its dependence on Russia for its gas needs.
The Hungarian government opposed Brussels’ plan to limit imports of Russian fossil fuels and secured an exemption from sanctions on pipeline oil shipments.
The ten-year contract between Shell and Hungarian state-owned electricity company MVM stipulates the delivery of a total of two billion cubic meters of gas to Hungary starting in 2026, according to Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.
“It’s a long-term contract, the longest in duration and the highest in volume with any Western partner,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a gas conference in Milan.
This represents an extension of a previous agreement with Shell to supply Hungary with 250 million cubic meters of natural gas annually between 2021 and 2027.
But Szijjarto stressed that the new supplies aren’t intended to replace Russian gas.
He said, “Diversification for us doesn’t mean abandoning existing sources and paths, but rather adding new sources and paths to those existing ones”.
Hungary is bound by a 15-year contract with Russia’s Gazprom to supply it with 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually until 2036.
This contract has been supplemented by other agreements in recent years.
Most of Hungary’s gas imports come from Russia via the TürkStream pipeline in the Black Sea and then via the Balkan Stream network, as it’s the extension through Bulgaria and Serbia.
