Hungary Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Szijjarto was quoted by Reuters as stating: “Hungary signed a long-term gas supply agreement for the first time with a Western company. Hungary will secure 10% of its gas supply from the West, which is a huge step in Hungary’s energy diversification.”
Shell’s Global Executive Vice President Istvan Kapitany said that natural gas could help fulfill the demand for increasing quantities of clean energy, replacing coal or other liquid fuels.
In June this year, Hungary’s state-owned firm MVM announced plans to purchase up to 1 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per annum through the Krk terminal from 2021 to 2028.
By and large, Hungary has been dependent on Russia for its gas supply and has never been in any long-standing supply agreement with any gas seller except Russia’s Gazprom.
In 2019, Gazprom exported an estimated 9.3 billion cubic meters of gas to Hungary from the year’s beginning through October 29, and that is already a 22 % increase compared with the total gas supplies to Hungary recorded in 2018.
