EC: 12 European countries have problems with gas supplies from Russia

Russia has reduced or completely stopped gas supplies to 12 countries of the EU, President of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen said in an interview with the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias, Report informs.

She called Russia’s actions intentional, and said the EU needed to prepare "for a further disruption, if not a complete cessation of supplies" of Russian gas. She noted that the EU is turning to "more reliable energy partners."

“We already have record volumes of liquefied natural gas supplies from the US. We are getting more and more gas from Norway, the Gulf countries, Algeria or the Caspian Sea region,” von der Leyen said.

She added that during the first half of this year, the EU countries imported an additional 38 billion cubic meters of LNG and gas transported through pipelines outside of Russia. “This volume more than compensates for the reduction in gas supplies from the Russian gas pipeline by 28 billion cubic meters,” she said.

Earlier, the head of the EC recommended that European countries save gas consumption in order to quickly fill underground gas storage facilities (UGS).