MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/. Gazprom is in contact with the European Commission (EC) on gas supplies to Europe and has already provided some of the required information, the press service of the holding told TASS.
"We are in contact with the EC. Part of the information has already been provided," an official with Gazprom said.
Earlier on Thursday, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager said that the EC is "eagerly awaiting the information" from Gazprom to its official questionnaire about reduction of gas supplies during the gas crisis. She added that so far the EC has not come to any conclusions about the presence of some violations by the Russian company.
The EC’s previous antitrust investigation against Gazprom, which lasted from 2012 to 2018, was closed without fines on the basis of a settlement agreement.
Gas crisis in Europe
From September to December 2021, a number of EU countries accused Gazprom of limiting gas supplies to the EU during a period of peak energy prices, believing that the Russian supplier, which covers about 40% of the EU's gas needs, manipulated European prices.
However, European Commission leaders admitted that the European gas crisis was resulted by a number of factors, including a rise in global energy prices, bad weather that reduction of European wind power generation for several months, and some others.
Gazprom repeatedly stated that its deliveries to the EU countries in the autumn of 2021 increased compared to the same period last year and that all contractual obligations to the EU countries were fulfilled in full. This fact has been confirmed by both individual EU states and the European Commission.
Gas exports from Russia to non-CIS countries in 2021 increased by 5.8 billion cubic meters in comparison with 2020 and totaled 185.1 billion cubic meters.