Gas Supplies Drop, EU Plays Down Dispute

By Maria Danilova

Kiev, Ukraine -- Russia's cutoff of natural gas to Ukraine was forcing several European countries to dip into reserves Monday, with Moscow tightening the tap even further.

European Union officials offered assurances Monday that consumers faced no danger for now, even as Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria said that supplies from pipelines through Ukraine remained down, in Romania's case by 30%.

Russia's state-controlled gas giant Gazprom stopped supplies to Ukraine on Jan. 1 in a dispute over price and overdue bills and said it would keep pumping gas through Ukraine for European customers.

But Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Monday it would cut the amount of gas going into the pipeline by 65.3 million cubic meters, or about 20% of what has been daily supply, accusing Ukraine of having stolen that amount.

Miller said during a televised meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that such reductions would continue daily depending on the amount of gas not making it through Ukraine.

Ukraine says Gazprom has not been supplying the 25 million cubic meters of "technical gas" needed as fuel to send the gas westward, so it has been taking the gas.

Miller said Gazprom would take steps to compensate European consumers. Europe relies on Russia for a quarter of its natural gas and 80% of it goes through pipelines that cross Ukraine.

The pipeline operator in Bulgaria, which gets 90% of its gas from Russia, said Russian supplies have dropped by up to 15% and said a loss of 45% would leave it unable compensate from its reserves. In that case, "business may run into trouble," Bulgargaz CEO Dimitar Gogov said.