Russian gas exports to Europe through Ukraine have been stable on Monday despite a contractual row between Kremlin-owned Gazprom GAZP.MM and Austria’s OMV, which halted gas flows to the Vienna-based company this month.

Russia stopped gas supplies to OMV in mid-November in a dispute over payments but was still pumping steady volumes to Europe via Ukraine after remaining buyers asked for more gas.

Russian gas transit via neighboring Ukraine has been complicated by the war that erupted in February 2022.

The current five-year gas transit deal between Russia and Ukraine expires on Dec. 31 and Kyiv has repeatedly said it would not engage in talks with Moscow over an agreement extension.

Gazprom said it would send 42 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Monday, unchanged from Sunday.

Nominations, or requests, for natural gas flows into Slovakia from Ukraine were steady on Monday while nominations for flows leaving Slovakia were largely at levels registered over the weekend, data from transmission system operator Eustream showed.

Nominations for flows to Austria from Slovakia were similar to weekend levels but about 18% below last week’s while nominations to the Czech Republic from Slovakia were down about 5% from the past week.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow and Jason Hovet in Prague, Editing by Himani Sarkar and David Goodman)