OREANDA-NEWS Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander Novak says that Europe may face problems passing the autumn-winter period due to the situation with gas supplies.

"A year ago, Europe lost LNG competition to the Asian market, and we saw that flows were redirected there, which, given the incomplete injection of UGS, led to a sharp increase in gas prices. Today they are four times higher than a year ago. And unfortunately, the trend will be continuing for several years - there will be high gas prices", - said the politician in an interview for the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

Novak continued: "Today, there is a multidirectional trend in the European market: due to the lockdowns that we periodically observe in the People's Republic of China, LNG has shifted to a greater extent towards the European market, including LNG, which is supplied from Russia. Our pipeline gas supplies have declined for well-known reasons. That is, Canadian sanctions against Gazprom did not allow the delivery of the equipment after repair, which pumps gas through Nord Stream 1, which supplied to Europe 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Today we see a collapse in the European market - prices have increased by 50%".

The Deputy Prime Minister also added that he does not exclude the possibility of serious problems on the European market this year, especially during the autumn-winter period. "If Europe wants to reach the level of pumping 80% of UGS capacity, they still need to pump about 40-45 billion cubic meters of gas. This is a great deal", he noted.