January 28th, 2010

Hungary to press for long-term supply contract with Gazprom

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Hungary’s government will ask Russia’s Gazprom to supply the clients of troubled Hungarian gas company EMFESZ in the long term at a meeting of the Hungarian-Russian mixed economic committee in Budapest on Thursday, business daily Vilaggazdasag said on Wednesday.

The government could make the request more attractive by offering to have the Hungarian Energy Office (MEH) name a company close to Gazprom as a “service provider of last resort”, allowing that company to take over all of EMFESZ’s clients.

EMFESZ earlier imported Russian gas through Ukraine’s RosUkrEnergo, but a deal between Russia and Ukraine that ended the gas crisis in Europe last January cut out RosUkrEnergo as a middleman.

Russian daily Vedomosti reported on Wednesday that EMFESZ is buying its gas from MOL and E.On, citing sources close to the company.

EMFESZ imports about 3 billion cubic metres of gas a year. It supplies 250,000 homes as well as industrial clients.

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  1. Forintman says:
    January 28, 2010 at 11:12 am

    This is a total stitch-up. Who do you think MOL and E.ON buy gas from? E.ON already has a joint company with Gazprom for importing gas. If EMFESZ goes bust then the customers are switched to the existing suppliers of last resort. On the surface this looks fine but since Gazprom already (probably) owns EMFESZ through Rosgas – then all this does is cuts out E.ON and MOL on the action. So the question is, does this cement Gazprom’s hold on part of the Hungarian market? The other question is who gets the money for making this happen?