Russian state gas company Gazprom will stop supplying natural gas to Finland next Saturday. This is reported by the Finnish Gasum, a gas wholesaler of the Finnish government. Gasum will supply gas from other countries from this weekend through a pipeline connecting Finland to Estonia.

 

Russia requires European customers to pay for their gas in rubles from now on, even if it has been agreed in contracts that they would pay in euros or dollars, for example. Finland refused this. Poland and Bulgaria were previously cut off from Russian gas for the same reason.

The Finns are not nearly as dependent on Russian natural gas as other countries in the European Union. Although most of the gas that Finland imports comes from Russia, fuel accounts for only 5 percent of all the energy the country uses.

“Unfortunately, the natural gas supplies agreed in the contract are being terminated. But we have prepared well for this situation and will continue to supply all our customers with gas, provided there are no disruptions in our gas pipeline network,” said Gasum CEO Mika Wiljanen.

The Finns also signed a deal on Friday with energy company Excelerate Energy to lease a large floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) platform for a period of ten years. Both Finland and Estonia will use this import terminal from this winter to become less dependent on Russian gas.

Finland recently announced its intention to join the NATO military alliance. Russia sees the expansion of NATO to a country with which it shares a border of more than a thousand kilometres as a major threat.