Only label changed

The “gas supply stop” that isn’t one at all

Until recently, OMV still sourced more than 80 percent of all gas imports from Russia.(Bild: AFP/JOE KLAMAR)

Gazprom has stopped its gas deliveries to OMV and therefore to Austria. However, what sounds like a hard cut can be misleading. The so-called "gas supply freeze" is not actually a freeze at all - but merely the loss of certain privileges.

For a week now, the Russian state-owned company Gazprom has no longer been supplying natural gas to Austria's OMV. However, this is not an actual delivery stop. A similar amount of Russian gas continues to arrive at the Austrian-Slovak border in Baumgarten as before.

So what has changed? We imagine a huge metaphorical package. Previously, it arrived at the gas hub in Baumgarten in Lower Austria with a huge label. It said: only for OMV! This label has now been torn down in a rage by the Kremlin. The domestic energy company has lost its preferential right, so to speak. In short, the only thing that has changed is how the gas is sold.

Russian gas still ends up here
Until now, most of the Russian gas flowing into Austria has gone to OMV under a contract that has been in place since 1968. However, after the domestic energy company announced that it would deduct compensation from the monthly gas bill, Gazprom stopped deliveries under this supply contract on November 16. Gazprom is now selling this gas on the stock exchange or to intermediaries.

It is therefore likely that Russian gas will end up in our storage facilities via detours. An example: Slovakia buys in Baumgarten, OMV then buys from Slovakia. Where it now says Bratislava, it only says Kremlin. 

Nevertheless, observers see the fact that OMV no longer receives gas directly from Gazprom as the "beginning of the end" of the long-term supply contract, which was extended in 2018 until 2040. OMV itself does not wish to comment on this. "We are unable to comment on our legal strategy and ongoing legal proceedings," it said in response to inquiries.

However, it is an open secret that the company wants to get rid of the contract with Gazprom, which provides for a purchase obligation. OMV wants to produce its own gas from its Neptun Deep project in the Black Sea in Romania by 2027. In addition, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all EU states have agreed to phase out Russian gas by 2027. This could now be achieved earlier ...