Gazprom Refrains From Booking Yamal-Europe's Capacity for Gas Transit on Sunday - GSA

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia's Gazprom once again refrained from booking gas transit capacity of the Yamal-Europe pipeline for delivery through Poland for Sunday during an additional auction session, the data from GSA Platform showed.

At the regular auction session on Saturday, the offer to book Sunday capacity at the entry point to the Polish section of the pipeline, which is one of the main routes for gas supplies to Europe for Gazprom, remained unclaimed. Gazprom has been booking the pipeline capacities for transit of gas via Poland on a day-by-day basis in December. On some days, the Russian company ordered capacities at an additional session, which is held right before the start of the gas day, instead of using a regular auction. Alternatively, it used short-term intraday booking for several hours.

On Saturday, Sergey Kupriyanov, a spokesman for the Russian energy giant, rejected the allegations that Gazprom shortchanges gas transit to Europe as groundless and false, saying that Gazprom's practice is to book transit capacities to pump as much gas as contracted by clients and that European countries like Germany and France have already taken their contracted volume of fuel but have not placed any new orders.

The 2,000 kilometres (1,242 miles) long Yamal-Europe gas pipeline is one of the main routes of Russian gas supply to Europe. It passes through the territory of four countries — Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany — and has a capacity of up to 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year.