“Gazprom completely suspended the supply of Russian gas to French Engie

“Gazprom Export” on Thursday, September 1, completely suspends the supply of Russian gas under contract to the French energy corporation Engie. This is due to the fact that the company has not paid for gas supplies from Russia in July in full.

Gazprom Export reported on Tuesday that it had not received full payment from the French company for the gas supplied under the existing contracts in July by the end of August 30. For this reason, the Russian holding company has notified Engie of a complete suspension of gas deliveries from September 1 until it receives payment in full for the gas supplied.

Engie owns the largest gas transmission network in Europe and is the largest operator of underground gas storage facilities in Europe in terms of capacity.

The company is one of the shareholders of Nord Stream AG – the operator of the Nord Stream gas pipeline (Gazprom – 51%, Wintershall Dea and E.ON – 15.5%, Gasunie and Engie – 9% each), and also acted as one of the European investors in the Nord Stream – 2 project.

Engie said August 30 that previously Russian gas supplies had been reduced to 1.5 TWh per month, and the reduction was caused by “disagreements between the parties on the implementation of contracts.

According to Emmanuel Vargon, head of the French Energy Market Regulatory Commission (CRE), French gas storage facilities are now 91% full. According to her, France will survive the winter without gas from Russia if there are no cold weather.

Russian natural gas has been supplied to France for 45 years. During this time the total exports have exceeded 427 billion cubic meters. Gazprom’s main partner on the French market is Engie, with which it currently has five long-term contracts for supply of Russian gas.

In 2021, according to the Federal Customs Service of Russia, the Russian Federation exported to France about 11.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas (a decrease of 5% compared to the previous year), which covers 28% of this country’s needs for gas. France is among Gazprom’s top three gas consumers in the European Union.