How will the payment of Russian gas work?
All the news on gas and rubles after Putin's announcement. Giuseppe Liturri's analysis
This afternoon, with a decree , Russian President Vladimir laid down the new conditions that Russian gas buyers from "hostile countries" will have to observe from tomorrow April 1st. Failing this, supplies will be suspended.
According to the first summaries relaunched by international agencies, what seemed only a threat or a purely formal step for Gazprom's Russian clients, instead took on the concrete features of a provision aimed at making the proceeds that today end up in the sanctions mesh.
In particular, to buy Russian gas, it will be necessary for the buyer to open an account in euros at Gazprombank, the latter necessarily converting the entire amount into rubles in a special account always opened in the name of the buyer, and then from this account it is possible arrange payment in rubles in favor of the Russian supplier.
All this – and here is the difference – will be a burden entirely borne by the buyer, albeit with the obligatory intermediation of a Russian bank that will manage the exchange from hard currency to the ruble.
Basically, Putin asks European buyers to open an account in rubles, albeit formally putting the burden of the conversion from euro to rubles to the Russian intermediary bank, which still has until April 10 to define the procedures for implementing the decree.
In this way, as long as Gazprombank is excluded from the EU and US sanctions, which instead target the Russian central bank, it will be possible, as long as EU customers accept this procedure, to continue buying Russian gas.
From the first reactions of the gas market, the price of which has suddenly risen, Putin's counter-move seems to lead to an escalation of tension.
The next few hours will be decisive for understanding Western reactions.
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THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE PAYMENT OF RUSSIAN GAS. THE START MAGAZINE UPDATE
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/gas-rubli-russia-gazprombank/ on Thu, 31 Mar 2022 14:42:01 +0000.