Domino in electricity may bring the expiry of the Russian gas supplies of Gazprom through Ukraine

The diplomatic game has been on fire in Europe a few hours before the predicted termination of Gazprom’s contract with the transfer of Russian to the west. One of the countries strongly affected by this development is Slovakia, which does not even have sufficient alternative sources to fill the gap. Prime Minister Robert Fico warned Ukraine last week that if they do not accept an extension to Russian gas flows, then he will respond with a shutdown of electricity exports. CORVERSE It is worth noting that as a result of Russian bombings, Ukraine is based more than ever on imports of electricity from neighbouring countries. This winter, the total capacity in its connections is close to 2.3 gigawatts. Ukrainians are able to accept electricity from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. In turn, these countries cannot receive large quantities from Central and Western Europe because of the limited transport lines. Therefore, should Slovakia’s exports to Ukraine cease, the other countries should do everything they can to make up for them. Romania is already under pressure and in such a scenario you may have to increase its own imports from countries such as Bulgaria and Greece indirectly. After all, our country has already become heavily exported in recent months with high quantities to Italy, North Macedonia and Bulgaria. This is fatally pushing upward prices for Greek consumers. Naturally, if things become even more difficult, prices may rise further in the middle of winter. Export pressure combined with the exact gas prices is the two key factors that have led the wholesale price in our country to the level of EUR 130/ MWh. These prices are occasionally smoothed when the production of wind-photovoltaics is intense, which was observed in the second half of December. However, it is obvious that wholesale starts from a rather high base in the present time period. Therefore, a new energy domino due to Ukraine is an adverse and unacceptable scenario. It remains to be seen whether Slovakia will make its threat in early next year or whether a compromise will be found.