MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/. Austria’s OMV, an oil and gas company, has been notified by Russia’s gas giant Gazprom about gas supplies cuts, the Vedomosti daily said on Thursday, citing an OMV spokesman.
The company told the newspaper on Wednesday that gas supplies would be reduced but did not specify to which extent. "But this reduction can be completely compensated by OMV," the spokesman said.
A spokesman for Italy’s Eni also said on Wednesday that the company had been notified by Gazprom about a 15% reduction of gas supplies.
Gazprom said on Tuesday it had to reduce natural gas supplies via the Nord Stream pipeline due to the delayed return of gas pumping units after repairs by Siemens and detected malfunctions in motors. That is why Gazprom can ensure supplies of only 100 million cubic meters of gas a day via this pipeline whereas it is supposed to pump 167 million cubic meters per day under the plan. On Wednesday, Gazprom said it had to halt operation of one more Siemens gas turbine engine after its mean time before failure had expired. As a result, gas supplies will be further decreased by a third, to 67 million cubic meters a day, from the night on June 16.
OMV said in early June that it had paid in euro for Russia gas supplies under the new pattern (transfer of payments to Gazprombank in euro) and the payment had been done without problems.