MOSCOW, March 7. /TASS/. Russia’s Gazprom Export has successfully completed the first deal on gas sales to Western Europe priced in rubles on the Electronic Sales Platform, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

"The deal is a balance-of-month with NCG (German hub - TASS) delivery point. The volume of gas sold is about 80 mln cubic meters," the statement said.

According to the company’s Director General Elena Burmistrova, "today’s test deal has not just commercial but a highly symbolic meaning."

"For the first time in Gazprom Export’s history, a western European company buys gas and pays in rubles for it. So far it would be too early to provide any long term forecasts. Still we plan to further develop sales in rubles through our Russian Electronic Sales Platform," she was quoted as saying.

The Electronic Sales Platform is designed to physically sell natural gas to European consumers, in addition to supplies under existing contracts. Gas sales through it started at the end of September, 2018. Since the start of those operations the company has sold about 3 bln cubic meters of gas having signed contracts with more than 20 clients.