CEZ seeks higher capacity at Dutch LNG terminal, wants damages from Gazprom

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech power utility CEZ is in talks to raise the capacity it has booked at a new Dutch liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, Chief Executive Daniel Benes said on Czech Television on Sunday.

Benes said CEZ would also seek damages from Russia's Gazprom for failing to meet its contract obligations in gas supplies.

CEZ has booked 3 billion cubic metres per year in LNG import capacity - about a third of Czech annual consumption -- at the new Dutch LNG terminal at Eemshaven, and has started receiving first shipments through there.

"We are in talks on an increase in the Netherlands," Benes said. "It is in single billions of cubic metres."

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, CEZ had been buying most of the gas it needs for its customers and its own electricity production through intermediaries but also had a direct contract with Gazprom for small part of its imports that ran until the end of this year.

He said CEZ would seek damages, which he said in the order of hundreds of millions to low single billions of crowns, through arbitration.

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka)