Hungary is looking for a gas supplier in Qatar

The Kremlin’s last European ally, Hungary, is trying to reduce dependence on Russian fuel and is looking for a partner in Qatar.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced at the economic forum in Doha about the country’s plans to reduce gas dependence on the Russian Federation. Hungary covers up to 85% of its needs at the expense of Gazprom, and is currently negotiating with Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter. Orban explains, quotes Bloomberg:

“Half of energy consumption in Hungary is covered by Russia under long-term contracts. For the second half, we must find other partners. We are looking for them all over the world, and Qatar is a potential partner for us.”

Negotiations on the supply of Qatari gas are ongoing, but it is unlikely that the first batches will arrive before 2026. But already in 2023, Hungary will receive gas from Azerbaijan. At the end of April, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Sofia between the gas transmission system operators of Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and the Azerbaijani state company SOCAR, an appropriate agreement was reached.

This document, signed by the ministers of four Eastern European countries, will make it possible to link their national GTS into a single “ring” so that gas from the fields of the Caspian Sea is supplied to consumers from Budapest to Bratislava. Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Italy and Bulgaria are already receiving gas supplies from SOCAR. This year, in addition to Hungary, the company will start exporting to Slovakia, which provides a third of the consumed gas at the expense of Gazprom.

Hungary continues to buy gas from Gazprom, and also achieved an exemption from the oil embargo EUreceiving “black gold” from Russia through the Druzhba pipeline built in the 1960s.

A few weeks before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, negotiations between Orban and Putin took place in the Kremlin, as a result of which Hungary received $ 2 billion in a loan to build a railway near Budapest. On Wednesday, the Hungarian prime minister said that Ukraine “has no chance” to win the war against the Russian Federation.

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