Page 9 - bne_newspaper_September_21_2018

Central Europe
September 21, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Hungarian PM reaches agreement on gas deliveries from Russia to 2020
bne IntelliNews
Hungary has reached an agreement on gas deliveries from Russia for both 2019 and 2020, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 18.
The Hungarian prime minister has built strong ties with Putin over the years, defying his EU partners. The Russian president has become his main ally since he announced his plans to build an illiberal state in 2014. Cordial meetings have been held between the two leaders at least seven times since the EU imposed sanctions against Russia.
The Hungarian PM has been a vocal critic of these sanctions, which hit Hungarian farmers hard. The Orban government maintained that cooperation with Russia is in Hungary’s economic and national security interests.
It is in Hungary's national interest that "there should be good cooperation between the two halves of Europe", including good Hungary-Russia ties, Orban said at the press briefing. Putin said that Hungary is one of Russia’s key partners in Europe.
Pro-government news site Origo reported on Tuesday night that Orban and Putin held a 45-minute discussion after the official talks, without translators.
Energy issues were at the heart of the talks in the past two days. On Monday, Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto met with Gazprom's
Orban calls Hungarian-Russian ties stable in Moscow.
CEO Alexey Miller to discuss the terms of gas deliveries for 2019 and 2020
Hungary plans to buy about 4.1bn cubic metres (cm) of gas from Gazprom, which is 40% of its annual gas consumption, currently at 10bn cm, he said. Hungary's long-term contract for gas deliveries from Russian runs until 2021.
At the press conference, which lasted only 15- 20 minutes, Orban had asked Putin to seriously weigh putting the path of a gas pipeline which would connect the Turkish Stream pipeline with Central Europe through Hungary.
The Turkish Stream will extend from Russia across the Black Sea to Turkey bringing Russian gas to the Turkish and Europe markets bypassing Ukraine. The pipeline will be owned 50-50%
by Gazprom and the Turkish state oil and gas company Botas.
"We are examining the possibility of connecting our Hungarian partners with the new routes of transporting Russian gas to Europe. I do not exclude that a land extension of the Turkish Stream pipeline could be built crossing Hungary," Putin added.
Hungarian governments in the last ten years
were fervent supporters of Russia's South Stream project that would have shipped some 63bn cm of Russian gas across the Black Sea and to southern Europe and through Hungary. The project was blocked by the EU in 2014.