Greek officials have yet to make any progress in negotiations with Russia’s Gazprom for an improved pricing formula concerning gas supply to gas utility DEPA in 2022, as indicated by the government’s failure to make any related announcements yesterday following a meeting in Sochi between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Russian President Vladimir Putin, their first as heads of state.

Greece is aiming for an improvement in the pricing formula, negotiated annually as part of a Gazprom supply agreement with DEPA expiring in 2026. Whatever the outcome of these negotiations, price levels will be higher than a year ago, given the energy crisis, but Greek officials are striving to subdue the Gazprom price increase as much as possible.

Gazprom, Greece’s main gas supplier, went into the negotiations with a 2022 pricing formula proposal that would index its gas supply price with Dutch gas platform TTF’s index at a coefficient of 100 percent, up from the current 40 percent level. Under the current pricing formula, the remaining 60 percent of Gazprom’s supply price for DEPA is oil-indexed.

The TTF index has risen by over 500 percent over the past year, meaning Gazprom’s proposal would lift gas supply prices to DEPA by five times, a prospect that has been flatly rejected by the Greek government.

A compromise deal entailing TTF indexing between 60 and 80 percent, for example, would offer some improvement compared to Gazprom’s initial offer, but gas prices will nevertheless end up being higher for households, businesses and industrial producers in Greece.