A group of European Parliament lawmakers has asked the European Commission to investigate Gazprom's role in soaring European gas prices, saying the company's behavior had made them suspect market manipulation.
This was reported on the official website of the European Parliament.
In a letter to the EU's executive Commission, dated Sept. 16, around 40 of the Parliament's 700 lawmakers said they suspected Russia's Gazprom had acted to push up gas prices.
It is worth noting, gas prices in Europe have surged in recent months, helping to drive European electricity costs to multi-year highs, with wholesale power prices not forecast to fall significantly this year.
"We call on the European Commission to urgently open an investigation into possible deliberate market manipulation by Gazprom and potential violation of EU competition rules," said the letter.
In response to the accusations, Gazprom said it supplied its customers with gas in full compliance with existing contracts.
The European Commission said it had received the letter and would reply in due course.
The lawmakers said they were suspicious of the company's "effort to pressure" Europe to agree on a fast launch to its Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which still has to clear regulatory hurdles that could take months to complete.
Gazprom announced last week that it had completed construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, doubling its gas exporting capacity via the Baltic Sea.
The EU lawmakers cited incidents including recent shut-ins of some of Gazprom's production and said the company had refused to book gas transport capacities through existing pipelines.
"All these factors allow to suspect that the record natural gas price surge in Europe in the recent weeks may be a direct result of Gazprom's deliberate market manipulation," the letter said.
Nord Stream 2 has faced sanctions from the United States and criticism from other countries wary of the EU increasing its reliance on energy imports from Russia.
The issue of transit through Ukraine did not stand aside
The letter also touched upon the topic of gas transit through Ukraine. MEPs are outraged that Gazprom refuses to book the capacities of the Ukrainian GTS and the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline.
At the same time, the Russian side claims that production at the Yamal fields was reduced due to a recent fire at the gas condensate preparation plant, which is located near Novy Urengoy. European parliamentarians want to find out if this fire could be a real reason for reducing production.
Many experts, in particular Anders Oslund, call Russia's actions a "gas war" against Europe. In his opinion, this may and should be the reason for Germany and the United States to agree on stopping the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Meanwhile, in Russia
Meanwhile, the Russian Federation has already managed to respond to the suspicions.Both Gazprom and the Russian government denied deliberately manipulating the market. Gazprom boss Alexei Miller said prices were increasing because European stockpiles had been more depleted than usual due to the cold winter and spring, which in turn delayed resupply. On Friday, the company said it was delivering everything that was agreed upon in existing contracts and was also attempting to meet additional demand.