Austria makes gas payment in rubles – media
Austria’s oil and gas conglomerate OMV has said its recent payment for Russian gas under the new ruble settlement mechanism was successful, TASS reported on Wednesday.
“We paid in May according to the new payment method. There were no problems at all,” an OMV representative said, as quoted by the news agency.
In March, Moscow set new payment terms for gas supplies to “unfriendly” countries that have imposed a wide range of sanctions on Russia. The conditions require buyers to open two accounts in Gazprombank – one in rubles and one in foreign currency. The buyer can deposit their currency of choice in their foreign currency account. The Russian bank automatically exchanges the currency into rubles, which are then transferred to the ruble account for payment to Gazprom.
EU countries including the Netherlands, Poland and Finland, as well as some companies in Denmark and Germany, have refused to comply and had their gas supplies cut. Others, like Hungary’s MVM, Germany’s RWE and Uniper agreed and paid under the new scheme. OMV said earlier that the payment process does not violate sanctions.
In April, CEO of OMV Alfred Stern said the EU was unable to replace Russian gas flows in the short term. Last month, the Federation of Austrian Industries warned that if Russian gas flows were to stop, some 300,000 jobs in Austria would be under threat.
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