May 21 (UPI) — Russia cut off its natural gas supply to Finland‘s state-owned energy firm, Gasum, the company announced Saturday.
The energy firm added that it will instead use other sources for its filling stations.
Gasum warned Friday that Russia would cut off the supply over the weekend.
“It has highly regrettable that natural gas supplies under our supply contract will now be halted,” CEO Mika Wiljanen said in the statement. “However, we have been carefully preparing for this situation and provided that there will be no disruptions in the gas transmission network, we will be able to supply all our customers with gas in coming months.”
The company also warned in a statement Wednesday of “a real risk” that natural gas imports from Russia could end this week under the company’s gas supply contract ending.
The prior day it announced in a statement that it planned to take its natural gas supply contract with Russian Gazprom Export into arbitration after rejecting its requirement announced in April to switch from paying in euros to rubles.
“In this situation, Gasum had no choice but to take the contract to arbitration,” Wiljanen said in the statement at the time. “In this challenging situation, we will do our utmost to be able to supply our Finnish customers with the energy they need.”
The gas cutoff comes after Finland recently formally applied to join NATO to strengthen its security amid the Russia–Ukraine war.
