Energy 20 March 2025, 2:53pm

Hungary and Türkiye breathe a sigh of relief as US sanctions waivers extended

Portfolio

The United States has extended a three-month sanction waiver, which was set to expire today, on Russian gas to Türkiye until May, a Turkish official with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. This most likely means that Hungary has also been granted a waiver from the US sanctions, which would mean that from today it would no longer be able to pay Gazprombank for Russian gas purchases. Gas supply prospects and prices will also be discussed at Portfolio's Corporate Energy Management 2025 conference on 8 April, details of which can be found here.

Hungary's gas supplies through the TurkStream pipeline are also threatened by two US sanctions. In one of them, the sanctions moratorium on the purchase of Russian gas by Gazprombank was due to expire today.

With around 45% of Türkiye's annual gas supply coming from Russia last year, a key issue for them is how to pay the Russian supplier's financial institution for imports, and they have been more vocal in recent weeks in their case for a sanctions waiver/deferral. In recent days, the Turkish and the US finance ministers have been discussing this issue, and then came the leak through the news agency that

Türkiye can still pay Gazprombank until May (no exact date given), with US permission.

Since the US has so far granted parallel sanctions relief to Türkiye and Hungary, which is also heavily exposed to Russian pipeline gas, it is reasonable to assume that the latest US concession leaked by the Turks also applies to Hungary.