Russian gas giant Gazprom will completely halt gas supplies to France’s Engie from Thursday, because the company has not fully paid for the July delivery costs. This was stated by Gazprom on Tuesday evening. ENGIE already announced this morning that Gazprom will reduce its supply from Tuesday due to disagreements over the implementation of some contracts. It added, however, that it secured the necessary quantities to meet its obligations to customers.
Gazprom headquarters in Moscow | Photo: Sergey Karpukhin | Source: Reuters
“Gazprom Export Engie has been informed of the complete interruption of gas supplies as of September 1, 2022, until all amounts due for supplies are received,” Gazprom’s statement was quoted by AFP on Tuesday on the social network Telegram.
ENGIE had already confirmed on Tuesday morning that it had taken several measures to significantly reduce any direct financial and material impacts that might arise due to the interruption of gas supplies by Gazprom. The company is France’s main gas supplier, and the state owns nearly 24 percent of it.
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Gazprom has significantly reduced the supply of Engi since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Last month it was just 1.5 terawatt-hours (TWh), for comparison, Engie’s total annual European supply is over 400 TWh. Gazprom owns four percent of ENGIE’s total supply.
French Prime Minister Elizabeth Born on Monday called on companies to come up with plans to save energy by next month. She warned that they could be hit first if France had to cut off gas and electricity supplies.
#LaREF22 | Réduire notre consommation d’énergie est notre Responsabilité Joint. C’est aussi notre intérêt commun pour surmonter le risque de pénurie.
My plea is clear: Every company should put in place an energy sobriety plan and take action from September. pic.twitter.com/cpvqpWQOZc
– Elizabeth Bourne (@Elisabeth_Borne) August 29, 2022
France is less dependent on gas imports from Russia than its neighbors. Reuters reported that Russia consumes about 17 percent of total gas consumption.
On Monday, Engy confirmed that it was in talks with Algeria’s Sonatrach to increase gas imports. According to some media, shipments from Algeria could increase by about 50 percent. France now gets about eight percent of the gas it needs from Algeria.
Algeria is the third largest supplier of gas to Europe after Russia and Norway. The country has discovered new reserves and recently signed an agreement to increase gas supplies with Italy.
