Hungary plans to buy gas not only in Russia, but also in the West

BUDAPEST, 4th — PRIME. Hungary intends to buy additional gas not only in Russia, but also in the West, next week it will become known how many cubic meters from which company Budapest will acquire, said Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations of Hungary Péter Szijjarto.

“I am negotiating the purchase of 732 million cubic meters in both dominant directions, that is, in the East and in the West. I also clarified during my visit to Moscow that 732 million cubic meters cannot be bought on the market today without Russian sources. So I would like to buy this amount is partly from russian and partly from other western trading sources.so we are not buying only from russia…I don’t want to speculate because negotiations are still ongoing.next week i will be able to answer what the final composition of these 732 cubic meters looks like in the east ratio -west,” Szijjártó said in an interview with the Hungarian ATV channel.

Answering a journalist’s question, Szijjarto also noted that the issue of gas purchases to Russia was decided by him and was not the subject of telephone conversations between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier, Szijjarto said that an agreement was signed with Gazprom, according to which, from September 1, an additional 5.8 million cubic meters of gas will be supplied to the country daily through the Turkish Stream and Serbia.

In July, the Hungarian government declared a state of emergency in the energy sector, which includes a package of seven measures: increasing the country’s gas production from 1.5 to 2 billion cubic meters, finding more than 700 million cubic meters of additional gas to fill storage facilities, a ban on the export of energy and firewood, increase in coal production, accelerate the restart of blocks of the Matra coal-fired power plant, extend the life of the Paks nuclear power plant and cut the preferential program of utility bills.

Szijjarto visited Moscow a week after the introduction of the state of emergency, where he held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at which the issue of supplying additional volumes of Russian gas to the Hungarian market was discussed. According to Lavrov’s results, Hungary’s request will be immediately considered. In mid-August, Gazprom began delivering gas in excess of the established contracts.