Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images LONDON — Energy giant Russia is threatening to send less natural gas to Europe — but Germany, one of its main importers, has rejected the idea. Majority state Gazprom said on Monday that due to unforeseen circumstances it is unable to comply with gas contracts with Europe. German energy company Uniper confirmed to CNBC that Gazprom had claimed “force majeure” over its supplies. Force majeure, a legal term, occurs when unforeseen circumstances prevent a party from fulfilling its contractual obligations, theoretically exempting it from penalties. “It is true that we received a letter from Gazprom Export in which the company retroactively claims force majeure for past and current shortages in gas deliveries. We consider this unjustified and have officially rejected the claim of force majeure,” Lucas Wintgens, Uniper spokesman, said CNBC’s Annette Weisbach. RWE, another German energy company, confirmed to CNBC that it had also received a force majeure notice from Gazprom. Gazprom was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC on Tuesday. Officials in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are increasingly worried about the possibility of a complete cut-off in gas supplies from Russia. Those fears intensified after Nord Stream 1 – a key natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – was shut down earlier this month for maintenance work, with some doubting that flows will be fully restored after the work is completed on July 21. European nations received about 40% of their natural gas imports from Russia before it invaded Ukraine. European officials are trying to end this dependency, but it is a costly process and difficult to achieve overnight. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has announced new gas deals with the United States and Azerbaijan, for example, as it seeks new fossil fuel suppliers. “This is clearly uncharted territory and unprecedented in this form,” Andreas Schroeder, head of energy analysis at research firm ICIS, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe on Tuesday. “While the European Union has managed to reduce the volume of hydrocarbon imports into Russia, they have not been able to reduce the price they pay.” European gas prices have soared as a result of lower flows from Russia. But those higher prices mean Russia can send less gas to Europe and make the same — or more — money than before. Schroeder called this the “compensation effect.” The first-month gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, a European benchmark for natural gas trading, was about 1 percent higher at 159 euros ($1.02) per megawatt hour on Tuesday morning. Prices have increased more than 600% over the previous year.
