MOSCOW, December 26. / TASS /. A number of European clients of the Russian Gazprom gas giant, in particular, France and Germany, have already selected their annual contract volumes in 2021, so they are no longer submitting applications for gas supplies, Gazprom Spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov told the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"This year, Gazprom supplied 50.2 bln cubic meters of gas to Germany, which is 5.3 bln more than in 2020. Apart from Germany, among the countries, to which Gazprom has already delivered more gas than last year, are Italy, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Denmark, Finland and Poland. Meanwhile, several clients, including from France and Germany, have already selected their annual contract volumes, and, thereby, [they] no longer submit applications for gas supplies <…>," the Gazprom spokesman noted.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Gazprom did not book the capacity of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, since there were no applications from European consumers. As the Russian gas giant pointed out, Gazprom delivers gas to Europe according to the clients’ applications in line with existing contracts.

The Yamal-Europe gas pipeline runs across four countries - Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany. Its design capacity amounts to 32.9 bln cubic meters per year.