Berlin - Gas suppliers said Thursday they foresaw no shortage of gas in Germany, western Europe's biggest gas importer, despite Russia cutting gas supplies to its western neighbour Ukraine.

"Our customers can count on reliable deliveries," said Martin Weyand, chief of the BDEW German utilities federation.

He said German did not rely only on pipelines through Ukraine to receive Russian natural gas, but also on transit via Belarus. In addition, Norway, Britain and the Netherlands supplied Germany with gas from offshore fields and Germany held large gas stocks.

Bernhard Reutersberg, chief executive of E. ON Ruhrgas AG, a major distributor, said in Essen: "Even if the dispute goes on for a long time, households and other retail customers are not going to suffer shortages here."

Nor were any wholesale customers currently affected.

"Our compensating capacity would only be stretched if we were to find ourselves facing grave supply cuts, continuing for a long time and with an especially cold winter," said Reutersberg, whose company buys one quarter of its gas from Russia.

Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom said on Thursday it had shut down gas deliveries to Ukraine in a move that followed a collapse in bilateral talks on a new gas supply contract and payments of outstanding debt. (dpa)