After last week's new round of Russian sanctions, courtesy of Europe and the US, the ball was in Russia's court to see how they would respond.
For several months now, we've been running with the hypothesis that Russia would wait until fall arrived and then begin to crimp off EU gas, possibly even just cutting it off.
Well, even though fall is still officially a few days away, Russia has begun to retaliate, subtly, by diminishing the flows of gas to several European countries.
Last week, we reported on Poland's complaint that it was receiving 45% less natural gas than it expected. Russia pretty much said Well, that's what you get for doing an end-run and reversing flows to Ukraine, with whom we are having a rather bitter and protracted contract dispute over gas deliveries.
Now as of today, four countries (including Poland) are reporting slowing gas deliveries from Russia:
Russian gas flows to EU slowing amid sanctions
Sept 12, 2014
Austrian energy company OMV said Friday that it was receiving between 10 and 15 percent less natural gas from Russia for a second day. An OMV spokesperson told the news agency Reuters that the utility was informed about the reduction by Russia's Gazprom, but was not given a reason for it.
Austria is the fourth EU country to report a slowdown in Russian gas deliveries this week, after Slovakia, Germany and Poland were also hit by reductions.
While Germany's largest utility RWE and Slovakia said the cuts were insignificant, Poland recorded a shortfall of a quarter on Tuesday and almost half on Wednesday.
All four countries started to pump gas to Ukraine after Moscow cut supplies to the country in June over unsettled debt claims related to gas deliveries from Russia.The "reverse flow" transfers have angered Moscow.
(Source)
For now, these cuts seem to be in response to the reverse flows into Ukraine. But I'm expecting even more cuts to be announced in the wake of the new sanctions levied last week.
The sanctions are specifically targeting Russian energy companies, which is a very big deal:
Fresh sanctions will freeze big foreign oil projects in Russia
(Reuters) – Fresh U.S.
by cmartenson 
