MOSCOW, January 19 (RIA Novosti) - The bitter frost that has enveloped the Russian capital and burdened the city's energy sector is raising concern in Western Europe about the reliability of Russian natural gas supplies.
Power demand in Moscow has soared this week as temperatures as low as -30°Celsius (-22°F) have engulfed Moscow and its surrounding regions, prompting residents to turn to electric heaters to combat the cold.
The peak load on the city's power system hit a new record high Thursday, reaching about 16,000MW at 6p.m. Moscow time (3p.m. GMT), exceeding Wednesday's peak by 240MW.
Moscow utility Mosenergo said Thursday that it could slightly increase its heat and electricity output by about 60MW.
The city administration said the city was operating normally despite freezing conditions. There had been no power cuts to residential buildings or schools, and small, localized supply problems did had an effect on the supply of hot water.
Russian power giant Unified Energy System (UES) had to cut back supplies to some of the city's consumers Thursday from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. GMT and said it did not exclude the possibility of reducing electricity supplies to Finland due to increased power consumption in Russia.
UES had agreed with its Finnish partners that during peak demand periods for the next five days, power supplies to Finland could be reduced by 400 megawatts. UES' contract stipulates supplies of 1,300-1,400 MW.
Russia's state-controlled energy giant Gazprom said it provided 750 million cu m of natural gas in additional supplies to domestic consumers on January 16-18 - almost as much as Great Britain would typically use in two days during this time of year. Gazprom said it had provided an extra 130 million cu m of gas directly from its fields, with the remainder being withdrawn from underground gas storage facilities.
The energy chairman of the European Union's Council of Ministers said Thursday, amid signs that Russia's struggle to meet domestic energy demand threatened to create shortages on European markets, that Europe should seek to diversify its energy supplies to limit its reliance on Russian gas.
"Russian natural gas will remain the backbone of European gas supplies. But we should strive for gas pipeline diversification and a search for alternative energy sources," said Martin Bartenstein, who is also Austria's economic and labor minister.
Russian government ministers said Thursday that conditions on Russia's power and heat networks were "complicated" but "under control".
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said it was crucial to prevent power cuts in the burdened capital.
"A serious power failure in Moscow could cause a chain reaction," he said, but noted that the situation in the city was currently under control.
Concerns over Moscow's ability to cope with a prolonged period of high demand were heightened by last May's blackouts, which caused chaos across the city.
Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said fuel could be released from Russia's strategic reserves to help combat the problem, but that the country's gas fields and storage facilities were already working at full capacity.
Regional Development Minister Vladimir Yakovlev said production problems had been registered at power plants near St Petersburg in Vyborg, in the West Siberian cities of Tomsk and Omsk, in European Russia's Samara and in the Kaliningrad Region, the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.
He said the supply situation in the regions, most of which have been hit by the cold spell, was "complicated" but being "controlled and regulated".
