Hungary on Saturday has released a statement that Moscow has started delivering extra gas to the EU member after a visit in July by its foreign minister.
Foreign Minister of Hungary said that trade talks with Moscow “led to an agreement”, which results in Moscow’s Gazprom starting to deliver “above the already contracted quantities” on Friday.
As per Ministry official, Tamas Menczer said via his Facebook page, “It is the Hungarian government’s duty to ensure the nation’s safe supply of natural gas, and we are living up to it.”
In the very first phase, an extra volume of 2.6 million cubic meters per daily will reach from the south via the TurkStream pipeline until the August’s end, he added, while enclosing talks were underway for September deliveries.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto made a earlier unannounced visit to Moscow in July to discuss the purchase an extra 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 huge amount is impossible without Russian sources,” Menczer said in the post on Saturday, mentioning Szijjarto’s visit.
An EU plan to cut gas consumption across the bloc by 15 per cent to cope with an energy price crisis spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine came into effect this week.
Some EU countries, though, had carve-outs from strictly following the rule, which was in any case termed a “voluntary demand reduction”.
Hungary, which relies on gas piped in directly from Russia, had demanded the exception.