The state company "Bulgargaz" will sue the Russian monopolist "Gazprom Export" for the suspended gas supplies to Bulgaria. This was announced by Energy Minister Vladimir Malinov at a briefing.
The Bulgarian company has decided to seek its rights for losses incurred in the amount of 400 million euros, news.bg specified.
However, we will give the Russian company a chance to pay off for our country. The state gives one month's time to "Gazprom" to be paid to "Bulgargaz" because the delay is 2 years and this is "unacceptable" for Malinov.
Otherwise, an arbitration case is launched. The decision to sue the Russian giant was made after a legal analysis, according to Malinov.
We remind you, "Gazprom" suspended natural gas supplies to Bulgaria under a long-term contract that was in effect until the end of 2022 on April 27, 2022. This occurred in the second month after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Gazprom then unilaterally stopped supplies to Poland via the Yamal - Europe gas pipeline.
Previously from "Gazprom" announced a new payment method for long-term contracts in their attempt to energy blackmail Europe into backing down from its position of supporting Ukraine in its resistance to Russian aggression.
On March 31, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree requiring some countries to pay for gas delivered after April 1 in rubles only. For this purpose, special accounts in rubles and foreign currency type "K" are opened in Gazprombank. for foreign buyers. The foreign buyer pays for the gas in the contract currency, GPB sells it on the Moscow Exchange and transfers rubles to "Gazprom". At this point, the obligation to pay the natural resource is considered fulfilled.
This was determined by "Bulgargaz" and the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) as risky - the new two-stage payment procedure proposed by the Russian side is not in accordance with the existing contract until the end of this year and poses significant risks for the Bulgarian side, including making payments without receiving any or gas supplies from the Russian side, it was stated in the analysis made by the companies.
The first two countries that ended up with payments under the unilaterally announced new scheme of "Gazprom" it was Poland and Bulgaria. In the following weeks, the deadlines for payments to other countries have already arrived, but the one announced by "Gazprom" scheme has already been amended and clarified.
EuroPol Gaz, the owner of the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, filed an arbitration claim against Russia's Gazprom. in the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce a year ago. The company filed claims for losses in the amount of 1.3 billion euros.
Arbitration cases with "Gazprom" because of interruptions in gas supplies, the German concern Uniper, the Czech CEZ, the French Engie and the Finnish Gasum also started.