(Read the full article on UNIAN.UA)

The national joint-stock company Naftogaz of Ukraine has appealed to the European Commission with a complaint about the abuse of a dominant position in the European gas market by Russia’s Gazprom.

This was announced by the  Department of Integrated Communications of Naftogaz of Ukraine.

The national company has applied to the Directorate General for Competition for immediate action to normalize the situation.

Gazprom has sharply reduced its sales of its own gas on the European spot market despite growing demand and limits other companies’ ability to supply additional gas to Europe and compete with Gazprom. This is one of the key causes of the crisis and the record rise in prices in Europe. Gazprom’s actions are anti-competitive and have had significant negative consequences for all European consumers. Naftogaz, as one of the largest buyers of gas in Europe, is also suffering from these abuses. Therefore, we ask the European Commission to respond appropriately to the violations, “said Yuri Vitrenko, Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz. 

Naftogaz draws the European Commission’s attention to a number of abuses:

• deliberate refusal of Gazprom to properly fill gas storage facilities in the EU owned by Gazprom or in which it has significant reserved volumes;
• the Russian company abruptly and without good reason stopped selling gas through its own electronic platform;
• having sufficient gas volumes and the ability to use the free transit capacity of the Ukrainian GTS, Gazprom refused to supply larger volumes to the EU;
• without good reason, Gazprom has not added a gas transmission point on its electronic platform on the Russian-Ukrainian border;
• Gazprom continues to block gas exports from Russia by private companies, as well as blocking gas transit from Central Asia to Europe;
• creating an artificial gas shortage and putting pressure on the European Union to launch the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline as soon as possible without complying with European legislation.

The statement notes that Gazprom’s actions directly contradict European antitrust law and have already led to rising prices to a record $ 1921 per 1,000 cubic meters. m (as of December 21, 2021).