Hungarian FM: TürkStream deliveries resume after maintenance

Deliveries have resumed over the TürkStream pipeline after successful annual maintenance, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said in St Petersburg on Thursday, adding that Hungary’s winter reserves are being filled according to plan.

The Russian provider restarted deliveries earlier this week, and the volume is now up to normal levels, Péter Szijjártó said. Hungary’s reserves already cover 37 percent of the country’s annual consumption, against a European average of 21 percent, he said. “No matter how hard the winter will be, curbing gas consumption is out of the question,” he added.

“It is time everyone understood that energy supply is not an ideological or political issue but of rock-hard reality,” he said.

Should it be cut off from Russian resources, Hungary would be unable to satisfy its energy needs, “and so a pragmatic energy cooperation with Russia remains in our interest,” he said. The European Union’s sanctions also allow such cooperation, he added.

Szijjártó is attending the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, where he is slated to meet Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev.

Source: MTI