“Everything is possible in theory. It was possible a year ago, a month ago. Nothing new has happened. This frenzy is idiotic. It stems from the fact that people can’t read.”

“Co-ordination between Russia and Opec has been discussed in the past and has always come to nothing, and it would be a shock if any different outcome occurred this time,” says James Henderson at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

“While we view this outcome as unlikely, a 5% production cut by just Saudi Arabia and Russia would be sufficient to bring the market close to balance,” said Jason Gammel, oil analyst at Jefferies. “A balanced market…would set the stage for oil price recovery.”

Currently Greece imports gas from Gazprom at a price of between $4.6 and 4.7 /mn Btu, Kitsakos said; from Turkey's Botas at $5.9/mn Btu; and from Algeria's Sonatrach at $6.5/mn Btu. Gas at the Dutch TTF is around $6/mn Btu. However, the price Cheniere will ask for gas is rumoured to be around $7/mn Btu.

The stress test had definitely shown that “we still need additional infrastructure, but not everywhere – we really need to target investment where it's really needed and have the projects of common interest (“PCI's”) and how Europe promotes investments should really be targeted to regions where we do need investments.”

"The practice of filling the market with cheap oil at any cost is wrong -- half a year or a year later it could be sold at twice as high," Leonid Fedun, vice-president of Lukoil, Russia's second largest oil producer, was quoted as saying.

The economy will shrink 1.5 percent this year, Alfa Bank’s Natalia Orlova said in a report on Monday, cutting her previous forecast for an expansion of 0.3 percent.

"Just because I’ve built a pipeline, that doesn't mean that you have to buy my gas, the idea that that somehow it's undermining diversification of sources is just not true."

Nord Stream 2 will be built, according to Gazprom’s chairman of the board, Viktor Zubkov. “This means that customers will receive gas at favorable prices, but for this we need reliable sources of supply and uninterrupted means of transportation,” he said.

Ukraine, once one of Russia’s biggest foreign gas buyers, had a debt of more than $29 billion before Tuesday’s bill, according to Gazprom. Naftogaz has demanded almost $26 billion from Gazprom in Stockholm arbitration, claiming it overpaid for supplies and was paid too little for transit, with a court ruling not expected before the middle of the year.