Putin warns of further cuts in Nord Stream 1 supplies
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf It has been clear since this morning: Gas is flowing through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline again. A spokesman for Nord Stream AG confirmed this to the German Press Agency on Thursday.
Gas traders had already received the first confirmations for deliveries from Russia on Wednesday. A few hours later, however, Gazprom corrected the announced quantities downwards again.
“Gazprom has announced: Now about 530 gigawatt hours of gas for Nord Stream 1 will be delivered on July 21. reported. That would be around 30 percent utilization,” Bundesnetzagentur boss Klaus Müller announced on Twitter on Wednesday.
As a rule, shippers request the required natural gas the day before, and the supplier, in this case Gazprom, confirms. The so-called nominations are the prerequisite for transporting significant quantities. Registrations can still change until shortly before delivery.
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Nord Stream 1 maintenance has been ongoing since July 11; no more Russian gas flowed to Germany. Gazprom had previously reduced deliveries to 40 percent and attributed the procedure to the maintenance of a turbine belonging to the German company Siemens Energy. The turbine was in Canada for several weeks for repairs and could not be returned due to sanctions against Russia.
For a few days now she has been on her way back via Germany. There is agreement in the federal government and among experts: the throttling is a political calculation.
Gazprom intends to keep up the pretense
New statements from Gazprom on Wednesday suggest that the Russian monopolist intends to keep up this pretext for supply cuts. A complete start of deliveries via Nord Stream 1 seems impossible for the time being.
Germany has drastically reduced its gas imports from Russia in recent months – currently only 26 percent of natural gas consumption in this country comes from Russia. In 2021, the proportion was still just under 55 percent. However, the Russian gas is needed above all with a view to the coming winter in order to fill up Germany’s storage facilities in good time.
>>Read also: “We have gas, but we can’t find any tankers” – setback for Europe’s new energy strategy
The whole of Europe, which covered 40 percent of its natural gas demand from Russia last year, currently only gets a fraction of the gas supplies via the Ukraine route and pipelines in Turkey (Turkstream). According to the price information service ICIS, around 80 million cubic meters of natural gas are currently being transported from Russia to Europe. For comparison: Germany alone currently consumes around 120 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. In winter, the need is more than three times as high.
Gas is flowing – but for how long and where?
(Photo: AP)
Statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin suggest that the situation in Germany is unlikely to ease significantly. During a visit to Iran, the head of the Kremlin said that without the missing turbine, Russia could only pump 30 million cubic meters of gas per day to Germany via Nord Stream 1 – that would correspond to 20 percent of the usual amount.
Deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann made it clear that the federal government expects Gazprom to fully meet all delivery obligations after the end of the maintenance.
Further price jumps possible
Should Nord Stream deliveries actually level off at 20 percent in the long term, further price jumps could be expected. A megawatt hour of gas for the month of August currently costs just under 155 euros on the Dutch TTF exchange. A year ago the price was still 21 euros.
In order to keep the risk of a gas shortage as low as possible, the European Commission presented a plan on Wednesday. The aim is to reduce gas consumption by 15 percent between August and March. According to the Commission, this would save around 45 billion cubic meters of gas and save Europe through the winter.
More: “Have to prepare for a winter without Russian gas” – EU prepares for energy emergency
