After Finland, Poland and Bulgaria, the Netherlands has become the latest European country to be cut off from gas supplies by Russia. On Monday (May 30), local time, Gazprom, a Russian gas company, announced that it has notified the Dutch GasTerra company that it will suspend gas supply from May 31 because it has not yet received the payment owed by the Dutch company GasTerra in April.

GasTerra also responded to this, Gazprom will stop supplying gas to it on Tuesday (May 31), so the former GasTerra rejected Putin's ruble settlement of gas terms.

GasTerra is a partially state-owned company in the Netherlands, with the Dutch government holding 50 percent of its shares and energy giants Shell and Exxon Mobil each holding 25 percent.

Dutch Energy Minister Rob Jetten tweeted: "We understand that GasTerra does not agree with the settlement terms unilaterally imposed by Gazprom. Nor will this decision have any negative impact on the natural supply of ordinary Dutch households."

GasTerra believes that the ruble settlement order would violate EU sanctions and that there are too many financial and operational risks in this payment method.

GasTerra said that the shortfall of 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas caused by Russia's gas cutoff will not fully understand the impact on the supply and demand situation in the European market. But GasTerra said it has prevented that by buying gas elsewhere.

Pieter ten Bruggencate, a spokesman for the Dutch economy ministry, said that the Netherlands will not launch an emergency plan to require industrial users to reduce consumption, and for now, the threat to Dutch natural gas supplies is limited.

The Dutch government says the Netherlands relies on Russia for about 15 percent of its natural gas supply, with an annual supply of about 6 billion cubic meters, below the EU average of 40 percent.

hurt each other

Denmark's largest energy company, rsted, also said in a statement on its official website on Monday that it was preparing to deal with supply cuts. Vox Energy said that Gazprom has been asking the company to pay for imported natural gas in rubles, and the company has repeatedly refused and insisted on using euros. Considering that May 31 is the final payment deadline, the possibility of Gazprom's supply interruption at that time cannot be ruled out.

Vox Energy said it was impossible for Russia to directly cut off gas supplies to Denmark because there is no direct pipeline between the two countries. This means that Denmark should still be able to secure supply by buying gas from the European market.

While Russia is cutting off natural gas supplies to many countries, the European Commission has proposed a sixth round of sanctions against Russia, including measures such as an oil embargo, but the plan has so far failed to pass.

The EU is trying to hit Russia's economy with an oil embargo, and Russia is fighting back with a ruble settlement order, both trying to "choke the neck" to hurt each other.

Article source: Financial Associated Press

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