Hungarian Power Plants Switch to Oil As Russian Gas Supply Drops

Text of report by Hungarian Kossuth Radio on 19 January

Mol Rt. [Hungarian oil and gas company] has restricted gas supply to major domestic consumers, mainly power plants, from today. Temporarily, they have to switch over to oil fuel.

This was necessary because Gazprom, owing to the extreme cold in Russia, yesterday reduced the amount of gas delivered to Hungary. By [yesterday] afternoon, the gas supplied to Hungary was 7m cubic metres less than the usual amount.

The Russian firm admitted that it could not meet the additional demand by certain European customers.

At the same time, the Ukrainian energy minister said that, in coordination with Gazprom, owing to the cold weather, Kiev was taking gas out of the pipeline to Europe.

Minister of Economic Affairs Janos Koka has initiated talks with Gazprom managers and the Russian energy minister.