Russia begins delivering additional gas shipments to Hungary, according to Budapest
Hungary announced Saturday that Russia has begun sending additional gas shipments to it, following the visit of the Hungarian Foreign Minister to Moscow in July.
The Hungarian Foreign Ministry said that trade negotiations with Moscow “led to an agreement”, prompting Russia’s Gazprom to start delivering Budapest on Friday “larger than agreed” quantities.
“It is the duty of the Hungarian government to ensure a safe supply of natural gas to the country, and we are committed to this,” Tamas Mencher, a ministry official, noted on his Facebook page.
In the first phase, an additional 2.6 million cubic meters per day will arrive from the south through the TurkStream pipeline until the end of August, Mencher said, noting that negotiations are underway on deliveries in September.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto made an unannounced visit to Moscow in July to discuss the purchase of an additional shipment of 700 million cubic meters of natural gas.
“In light of what is known about the current European market conditions, it is clear that the acquisition of such a large amount is impossible without Russian sources,” Mencher said in his post on Saturday, referring to Scigarto’s visit.
This week, the European Union’s plan to cut gas consumption in all member states by 15% to deal with the energy price crisis caused by the Russian war in Ukraine came into effect.
But some EU countries have had exceptions to this rule being strictly followed, which has been called a “voluntary cut in demand”.
Hungary, which relies on gas delivered directly from Russia, had requested this exception.
