Last week, OMV informed the energy market via an “Urgent Market Message” about a foreign court decision obtained by a major European energy company. According to the Austrian giant, such a legal decision, if enforced in Austria, would require OMV to disrupt payments to Gazprom.

In the case of such a scenario, Gazprom will likely halt supply, affecting the Austrian gas market. “This assessment is based on Gazprom’s conduct in similar situations,” explained the Vienna-based company on its website. 

The Austrian regulator E-Control noted that a potential disruption in Gazprom’s deliveries could drive up gas prices in the short term. According to Jacopo Casadei, gas analyst with Energy Aspects, quoted by Montel News, “if you get an interruption tomorrow, you can easily see prices jump EUR 5-6/MWh. ”

Walter Boltz, energy consultant for the Austrian Federal Minister for Climate Action and  the former head of E-Control, expects such a disruption to lead to fast-rising gas prices as much as 20 to 25%, “but never as much as in 2022.” He also added that “it will also be a short-term effect of three to six months.”

However, according to Casadei, while Austria and other affected countries could replace Russian gas with non-Russian alternatives such as Norwegian flows, “some industries will not survive a second blow of Russian supply curtailment.”