Russian Gazprom has stopped the delivery of natural gas to Austria, according to the OMV utility

Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned natural gas company, stopped sending gas to Austria early Saturday morning, according to the Vienna-based utility OMV. This was because OMV said it would stop paying for the gas after a court award.

The authorities officially cut off supplies before dawn on Saturday. This happened after Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer quickly called a news conference on Friday to say that his country has a safe supply of alternative fuel for the winter.

In order to make up for the 242 million euros ($230 million) it won in arbitration from the International Chamber of Commerce due to its German branch’s earlier gas cutoff, OMV announced that it would stop paying Gazprom for gas to its Austrian branch.

The Austrian power company said in an email that at 6 a.m. on Saturday, there was no gas supply.

OMV said on Wednesday that it has enough gas in stock to keep its customers supplied in case Gazprom does something that stops the flow. It also said that storage in Austria was more than 90% full.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Once again, Putin is using energy as a weapon,” in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “By cutting off gas supplies, he is trying to blackmail Austria and Europe.”We have everything we need for this and the winter.