Natasa Vujec explained that today the consumption of natural gas was within 410,000 cubic metres per hour, with 190,000 cubic metres being ensured from Croatian sources and about 130,000 being imported from Russia and the rest taken from the Okoli underground storage tanks.
Vujec recalled that the reduction of imported gas supplies from Russia from Sunday afternoon to Monday evening, which was the result of a Russian-Ukrainian dispute over gas prices, was successfully overcome in Croatia as the country took over higher amounts of supplies from its Okoli underground containers.
After Russia and Ukraine reached agreement on the delivery of gas supplies, INA-Naftaplin did not expect the recurrence of a similar crisis.
Nevertheless, the Croatian company is trying to agree the import of emergency supplies in case of a reduction of the Russian gas supplies.
The director explained that as long as the amounts, stipulated under the agreement, were being imported from Russia, there is no possibility of purchasing additional supplies on the Croatian market due to the booked capacity of the pipeline through which the Russian imports are transported.
Croatia produces about 60 per cent of its natural gas needs and imports the rest from Russia.
About 470,000 consumers use natural gas in Croatia with the annual consumption of about 2.7 billion cubic metres.
In 2005, households used some 1.2 billion cubic metres of natural gas, which was by 100 million cubic metres more than in 2004.