Russian gas exports drop after pipe blast

Russian gas supplies to the Balkans fell by 40% today after a blast damaged an export pipeline crossing a separatist region of former Soviet state of Moldova.

However, Chisinau has denied the blast was linked to terrorism, saying the pipeline was more than 30 years old.

Turkey reported a drop in deliveries and Bulgaria said it would draw on state reserves of the fuel after supplies had fallen, while Romania said it was not experiencing problems.

Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas, said it would increase deliveries to Turkey via the Blue Stream link to compensate for smaller supplies via Moldova.

It said it would also boost supplies via two undamaged pipelines in Moldova, a Reuters report said.

"This accident... is linked to the fact that the age of this pipeline has exceeded 30 years," the interior ministry of Transdniestria, Moldova's separatist region, said on its website.

"There is no talk of terrorism," said Moldovan government spokesman Vitalie Condratchi.

The blast occurred at 0530 local time (0230 GMT) on the Ananyev-Tiraspol-Izmail pipeline running from Russia via Ukraine and Moldova to Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

The explosion created a crater five metres deep while flames leapt up to one kilometre into the air, Ernest Vardanyan, a reporter from Transdniestria's Novy Region newspaper told Reuters.

Ukraine said the blast had forced it to cut supplies towards Moldova and the Balkans by 40% to 24 million cubic metres per day.

Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas needs, regularly suffers from supply disruptions due to the age of pipelines and equipment across the former Soviet Union.

Bulgaria gets around 3 billion cubic metres per year , Romania around 4.5 Bcm and Turkey, which consumes around 24 Bcm of Russian gas annually, gets part of its supplies via the route.