'Giant' Gazprom confirms stopping supplying Russian natural gas to Finland

Gazprom announced to stop supplying gas to Finland. Photo: TASS

In a statement just released, the Russian company said: “Gazprom has cut off gas supplies to Gasum (Finland) due to Gasum’s failure to pay for gas deliveries in rubles. By the end of the working day on May 20, Gazprom Export had not received any payment from Gasum for gas deliveries in April in accordance with the decree of the President of Russia…”

Gazprom also revealed that it delivered 1.49 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Finland in 2017, accounting for 67% of the total gas supplied to the country last year.

Finnish state-owned gas company Gasgrid Finland announced earlier in the day that Russian natural gas supplies to the country had been halted. “Gas supplies via the Imatra border crossing were stopped on 21 May 2022,” the company said in a statement.

According to the same source, “the amount of gas that the Finnish gas market needs to be imported into the Finnish gas system via the Balticconnector is in line with the proposals of the market parties”.

Finnish company Gasum in a statement issued earlier this week stated that it does not accept Gazprom Export's request to switch to payments in rubles and therefore will not pay in the Russian currency or according to the payment mechanism proposed by Gazprom Export.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on March 23 stating that unwilling countries will have to pay for Russian gas in rubles, and Moscow will refuse to accept payments under gas contracts with countries in “compromise” currencies, namely the US dollar and the euro.