Russia’s top natural gas producer Gazprom has announced its profits for the first three months of this year, and they were 41 percent down from the same period in 2013. <br /><br />It blames that mostly on price cuts for gas delivered to Ukraine. At that time they were reduced in a deal with then pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich. <br /><br />The months since will not have been any better for profits as the gas war turned into a real war and Kyiv refused to pay substantially higher tariffs and stopped receiving Russian gas. <br /><br />The situation has now spilled over on to Poland, which has been re-exporting gas to Ukraine, and which said this week less and less gas has been arriving from Gazprom. <br /><br />Rafal Pazura, a spokesman for the Polish state-controlled energy company, said: “On Wednesday we had 45 percent less than is stipulated in the contract. It’s difficult to say why that is because we have not yet had a reply to our inquiries from Gazprom. It could be just technical problems.”<br /><br />The European Commission is not passing judgement on what is going on, not sure if it is technical issue or a deliberate holding back.<br /><br />Gazprom, however, has not actually denied supply levels this week are lower than they were previously: <br /><br />EU Commission Spokesperson Marlene Holzner said: “We have [been] informed indeed by the Polish authorities that there is a reduction of gas flows from Russia. On the discussions we have on the overall situation on the gas dispute we have proposed a date for a trilateral meeting between the Russian partners, the Ukrainian partners and us and that will be the 20th of September in Berlin.”<br /><br />Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has used gas as an economic weapon before, and he and Gazprom have previously warned there would be consequences if EU member states re-exported gas to Ukraine.
