Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary is ready for the heating season and natural gas supplies are continuous from the south, adding that the country’s energy security was “guaranteed in the long term”.
Minister Szijjártó held talks with Aleksei Miller, the CEO of Russia’s state gas company Gazprom, in St Petersburg, and the foreign ministry quoted him as highlighting the importance of the Turk Stream gas pipeline in terms of Hungary’s gas supplies, as well as Hungary’s 15-year gas purchase agreement with Gazprom, signed in 2021. “The long-term agreement and the secure transit route in the south guarantee that natural gas delivery for Hungary is uninterrupted and stable despite an extremely difficult geopolitical environment,” Szijjártó said, according to a ministry statement. “Gazprom is meeting its commitments taken in the 2021 agreement; Türkiye, Bulgaria, and Serbia, as reliable transit countries, ensure a continuous supply of gas from Russia to Hungary,” the minister said. He noted that Hungary had received some 5.6 billion cubic metres of gas via Turk Stream last year, while since the beginning of 2024, the volume of gas received had amounted to 4.8 billion, highlighting the increasing importance of the southern route. “Our gas storage facilities are 89% full … an amount which could cover 57% of Hungary’s annual demand,” Szijjártó said, adding that the European average of gas reserves was 27% of the total storage capacity.