Hungary and Gazprom Signed a Long-Term Gas Supply Contract

An agreement on gas supplies until the end of 2036 was signed in Budapest. For 15 years, Hungary will annually receive billions of cubic meters of gas from Gazprom. The Hungarian government and the Russian concern Gazprom on Monday, August 27, signed a long-term contract for the supply of Russian gas until the end of 2036. The agreement was signed in Budapest by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations of Hungary, Peter Siyjarto, and the chairman of the board of Gazprom, Alexei Miller. Under the terms of the contract, Gazprom will supply Hungary with 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Earlier it was reported that during 15 years two routes will be used annually to supply these volumes of gas - through Austria and Serbia. Hungary’s intentions to sign a new gas agreement with Gazprom were reported back in August, when Siyarto discussed this issue with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. On August 30, Siyjarto announced that an agreement on gas supplies had been reached with Gazprom, which will take effect on October 1. Hungary covers its gas needs mainly from Russia and has so far received fuel by pipeline through Ukraine. The new agreement provides for gas supplies bypassing Ukraine, which has already angered Kiev’s government. “We consider this move an exclusively political, economically unjustified decision taken to please the Kremlin and to the detriment of the national interests of Ukraine and Ukrainian-Hungarian relations, which fails to comply with the principles of the Treaty on the Foundations of Neighborhood and Cooperation between Ukraine and the Hungarian Republic of December 6, 1991,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated on September 27. In recent years, Hungary has diversified its gas imports by opening cross-border interconnect pipelines with most of its neighboring states and securing supplies from Royal Dutch Shell through a liquefied natural gas port in Croatia. DW