Slovakia’s state-owned gas buyer SPP said on Friday that Europe is not on the verge of reaching a deal to replace pipeline Russian gas with Azerbaijan’s gas. Europe is scrambling to replace supply from Russia from January 1 because the remaining pipeline gas flows from Russia to the EU via the Ukraine transit route are set to stop from December 31 when the five-year transit deal with Ukraine expires. Ukraine has already said on several occasions that it would not extend the current gas transit deal. Russia has signaled willingness…