RWE initiates arbitration proceedings against Gazprom

German energy firm RWE (RWEG.DE) has initiated arbitration proceedings against Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM) over missing gas deliveries, a spokesperson for RWE said, without providing further details.

The move, first reported by Handelsblatt newspaper, comes after German utility Uniper (UN01.DE) last week launched an arbitration process in the hope of securing billions of euros in compensation from Gazprom over undelivered gas volumes, Reuters reported on December 5.

RWE's exposure to Russian gas supplies has been fairly low in comparison, covering 15 terawatt hours (TWh) by 2023, which has been reduced to 4 TWh since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in late February.

"In the event of a full cut of supply, we calculate that the replacement of the remaining 4 TWh could cost at least an additional 400 million euros ($422 million)," Stifel Research analyst Martin Tessier wrote in June.

Uniper, which has incurred losses of around 11.6 billion euros to date by replacing Russian supplies that stopped since the end of August, has an exposure of 200 TWh.

($1 = 0.9466 euros)