BUDAPEST, Oct. 4 (Reuters) – Hungary receives gas from Ukraine on Monday, Hungarian pipeline operator FGSZ said, but declined to name the trading company supplying the gas.

Russian gas producer Gazprom (GAZP.MM) under a long-term supply agreement with Budapest that came into effect on Friday is expected to supply Hungary with gas via Serbia and Austria instead of Ukraine.

FGSZ has confirmed that it launched the new interconnection pipeline from Serbia on October 1 in response to questions from Reuters.

“If a (commercial) company obtains gas through Ukraine, it can continue to use the pipeline from Ukraine and current data on shipments shows that there is now a quantity of gas from Ukraine. ‘Ukraine similar to that of the new gas pipeline from Serbia, “FGSZ said.

He said that as a transmission system operator he could not disclose the identity of the trading company involved.

FGSZ said dozens of trading companies have shipped gas to Hungary in addition to Gazprom on various routes, including the Ukrainian pipeline.

Sergiy Makogon, head of the Ukrainian gas transit operator, said in a Facebook post that Gazprom had not resumed gas transit through Ukraine to Hungary.

“There is currently a small flow of gas from Ukraine to Hungary, but it is not transit, it is the re-export of gas by European traders that they have kept in Ukrainian underground storage.”

Gazprom’s decision to send gas through Serbia and Austria instead of Ukraine deprives Kiev of transit revenue and also means it can no longer import reverse flow gas through Hungary, which it has been doing since 2015 so as not to buy gas directly from Russia.

The dispute over Hungary’s new gas deal with Gazprom has turned into a bilateral dispute between Kiev and Budapest, who are already at odds over the use of the Hungarian language in Ukrainian schools. Read more

Reporting by Krisztina Than; additional reporting by Matthias Williams; edited by Kirsten Donovan and Jason Neely

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