Moscow-run state energy company says it will stop supplying Helsinki tomorrow over ‘payment issues’ amid tensions over NATO
- RAO Nordic has said it will suspend its electricity import to Finland from May 14
- The supplier firm is a subsidiary of Russian state energy holding Inter RAO
- This is due to RAO Nordic not being able to pay for imported electricity, it said
- Blamed suspension on not having received payments for electricity sold in May
Russia will suspend electricity supplies to Finland this weekend, a supplier said on Friday as tensions rise over Helsinki’s NATO bid following the conflict in Ukraine.
‘We are forced to suspend the electricity import starting from May 14,’ said RAO Nordic, a subsidiary of Russian state energy holding Inter RAO that sells its electricity on the Nordic market.
It blamed the suspension on not having received payment for electricity sold in May and said as a consequence it was no longer able to pay for more electricity from Russia.
‘This situation is exceptional and happened for the first time in over 20 years of our trading history,’ RAO Nordic said, hoping the situation would ‘soon’ improve and the trade could resume.
The Finnish electricity network operator said it would be able to make do without Russian electricity.
‘We’re prepared for this and it won’t be difficult. We can make do with a bit more imports from Sweden and Norway,’ Fingrid’s manager for operational planning Timo Kaukonen told AFP.