While deliveries to larger Serbian corporations who depend on natural gas has been cut, Serbian citizens have not been effected as of yet, reported Serbian news agency Tanjug. On Monday morning, Hungary received only 40 percent of the usual amount of gas which it receives from Russia by way of Ukraine. Serbian Gas Director Milos Tomic told B92 that Serbia is now receiving 50 percent less gas than usual from its Hungarian supplier. "Serbian Gas works under the Energy Law as far as the import and export of gas is concerned, and by those regulations the first priority is heating for citizens, schools, health facilities and food producers. Everyone else, who will not be able to sustain its work with the amount of natural gas we have, or other fuel sources, will be shut down. The situation is very serious." Tomic said. Tomic also added that the fact that Serbian Gas signed an agreement last year with their supplier Gazprom for the entire year of 2006, means that it will be almost impossible to get gas from another source. In a related development, Croatian oil company INA said on Monday its natural gas supplies from Russia via Ukraine had been reduced by 33 percent, but added that for now it did not expect any major problems with gas supply. Russian gas imports have been cut from about 130,000 cubic meters per hour to about 87,000 cubic meters. INA said that the situation was uncertain because it was hard to predict further developments in relations between Russia and Ukraine. As a result of a war of gas prices that broke out between the two countries, Russian state-run gas monopoly Gazprom halted gas supplies to Ukraine on Sunday, accusing Ukraine of stealing gas being transported via its territory to Western Europe. "We do not expect problems with supply this week and the next," INA-Naftaplin sales director Natasa Vujec said, expressing hope that the situation would not last longer than two weeks. In order to make up for the reduced supplies of Russian gas, INA has entered into talks on possible emergency imports of natural gas from Europe. Describing the current situation in the Croatian gas supply system as stable, Vujec said that households would have absolute priority, and that gas supplies to major consumers had already been reduced. INA appealed to all consumers to use gas sparingly. The current rate of natural gas consumption in Croatia is about 400,000 cubic meters per hour. Croatia produces about 60 percent of its natural gas needs and imports the rest from Russia, according to a statement from the Ministry of the Economy. "A prolonged reduction of gas supplies may cause problems because it is probably impossible to find alternative suppliers, and even if we do, they will certainly be more expensive," the ministry said. PIN/IRNA