BUDAPEST, Aug 5Without a long-term agreement with Gazprom, industry would stop in Hungary and there would be no heating in apartments, said State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the republic Tamas Menzer, who is responsible for bilateral relations.
So he commented on the opposition's statement that the agreement with the Russian company expensive and useless for Budapest.
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“Of the annual gas consumption in Hungary, 85 percent is Russian gas. This amount cannot be replenished in the foreseeable future, that is, without Russian gas, Hungary will freeze, there will be no heating in apartments, industry will stop, jobs will disappear,” Menzer wrote on Facebook*.
He added that the Russian gas means security of supply and energy security.
According to the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, high prices for raw materials are caused by «the harmful sanctions policy of Brussels, which is pushing Russian energy resources out of Europe.» Mentzer also recalled that Hungary is working on diversifying energy supplies: in addition to Gazprom, Budapest has signed a long-term contract with Shell. In addition, there is an agreement on the supply of gas from Azerbaijan, and the possibility of purchasing energy resources from Qatar, Turkey and Romania is being considered.
Earlier, the Hungarian energy company MVM CEEnergy and the Azerbaijani oil and gas company SOCAR signed an agreement under which Hungary will receive 100 million cubic meters of gas by the end of 2023. In the long term, the volume of deliveries is planned to be increased to two billion cubic meters per year.
The Hungarian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stated that the country is working on diversifying gas supplies, but in the short term it will not be possible to replace Russian energy carriers. In addition to increasing the import of Azerbaijani raw materials, Budapest is interested in increasing LNG supplies through the terminal in Croatian Krk and developing a gas field in Romania. In addition, according to Minister Peter Szijjarto, as part of the diversification of supplies, Hungary is considering the possibility of importing oil from Ecuador in case the overland transit of Russian energy through Ukraine stops.
Earlier, Szijjarto noted that during his visit to Doha, Qatar, an agreement was reached, according to which the energy companies of Hungary and Qatar can begin negotiations on the supply of liquefied natural gas in about three years. According to him, negotiations are also underway with Omani partners at the level of specialists and enterprises on the possible start of oil and natural gas imports. The Foreign Minister stressed that the agreements with the Persian Gulf countries on the supply of oil and gas to Hungary do not mean the rejection of contracts with Russia, but are aimed at diversification.
In September 2021, Hungary and Gazprom signed contracts for the supply of 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year over the next 15 years, of which 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year falls on the route through Serbia (from the Turkish Stream) and one billion through Austria. The contract volume corresponds to approximately 12.3 million cubic meters of gas per day. In August 2022, Szijjarto announced that he had signed an agreement with Gazprom, according to which, from September 1, an additional 5.8 million cubic meters of gas would be supplied to the country through the Turkish Stream and Serbia daily. During his visit to Moscow in March 2023, it was announced that the agreement on additional supplies would be extended.
* Meta activity (social networks Facebook, Instagram) is banned in Russia as extremist.