News wire — Hungary’s state-owned MVM group has signed a 5-year deal with U.S. energy company Chevron for the supply of 2 billion cubic metres of liquefied natural gas, the Hungarian foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Hungary has angered other European Union and NATO members by insisting that it cannot phase out Russian oil and gas, but Budapest has been trying to diversify its supplies nevertheless.
The EU has agreed to phase out Russian gas imports by late 2027 as part of an effort to end the bloc’s decades-long energy dependency on Moscow, a move Budapest opposes.
“Today we have reached an important milestone in American-Hungarian energy cooperation by signing a contract for 400 million cubic metres of LNG a year,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a post on social media platform X.
“We are interested in purchasing energy from as many sources and via as many routes as possible, ensuring the lowest prices.”
In November, Hungary said it had obtained an indefinite waiver from U.S. sanctions to use Russian oil and gas, following a visit by Prime Minister Viktor Orban to the White House.
A White House official said the exemption was for one year only.
At the time, the official told Reuters that Budapest had committed to buying U.S. liquefied natural gas with contracts valued at some $600 million.
MVM’s chief executive told Reuters this month that it would be able to supply Hungary with enough gas even if imports from Russia were halted, although prices would likely rise.
Reporting by Alan Charlish; Additional reporting by Krisztina Than and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Alison Williams – Reuters
