Europe affected by Russia's cut off

Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom's cut off to its neighbour Ukraine affects countries.

Following are comments from European customers affected on Saturday by the cut-off in gas supplies by Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom to its neighbour Ukraine over a pricing dispute:

TURKEY

"There is no problem (in supplies) and we do not expect any. We will not have the same problems we experienced in early January in previous years," an Energy Ministry official told Reuters. Turkey has enough gas stockpiled to cope with any problems, a senior official at state energy company Botas said.

FRANCE

A spokeswoman for France's main gas group GDF-Suez said she has had no indication of any abnormal incidents or supply disruptions and the system was working normally.

GERMANY

We are getting all the gas we've ordered," though there has been a slight decrease in pressure in the pipeline through Ukraine from Russia, a spokesman for leading German gas importer E.ON Ruhrgas said. This was apparently because only Russian gas destined for western Europe was being delivered through the pipeline and no longer gas for Ukraine.

ROMANIA

Economy Minister Adriean Videanu said Russian gas supplies remained around 30 percent lower on Saturday than the average daily level before the Ukrainian-Russian gas row, but Romanian consumers had not been affected as gas had been drawn from storage facilities to make up the shortfall. Romania produces 65 percent of its consumption from local gas fields and imports around one third from Russia.

BULGARIA

Bulgargaz CEO Dimitar Gogov said supply levels had not fallen below a critical level but further reductions could force the company to introduce restrictions for customers. "The pipeline pressure has dropped and we are getting smaller deliveries as of Saturday morning," Gotov told.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Martin Chalupsky, spokesman of RWE Transgas, the gas pipeline operator in the Czech Republic, said "We are without impact. We received a confirmation for 100 percent for today, so we are without problems today ... "The problems are on the south pipeline in Hungary and Romania and so on. The main pipeline through Slovakia, Czech Republic and Germany are now without problems."

HUNGARY

Pressure in Hungary's gas pipeline from Russia via Ukraine fell on Friday but is now rising, though not yet to the contracted level, and gas shipments are in line with the contract, oil/gas firm MOL said. FGSZ Foldgazszallito Zrt, the gas transmission subsidiary of MOL, said "...Pressure (in the pipeline) is not yet up to the contracted level, but it is rising continuously, and stood at 45 bars at 0900 GMT," FGSZ Zrt. said. "Shipments are at the moment coming in line with the contract," it said.

POLAND

Poland said gas deliveries via Ukraine had fallen 11 percent, 5 million cubic metres a day, on top of a six percent reduction on Friday, but were being made up by deliveries through Belarus. "The change in deliveries is not being felt by Polish natural gas consumers," gas operator Gaz System and gas monopoly PGNiG in a joint statement.

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