The ministry spokeswoman also referred to the turbine being serviced in Canada, which, according to Russian information, is essential for restarting Nord Stream 1.
(Photo: IMAGO/SNA)
Berlin, Brussels The Russian Foreign Ministry is promising a resumption of gas supply via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after maintenance work, but has cited Western sanctions as a possible obstacle.
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in Moscow on Thursday: “As far as the future work of the gas pipeline is concerned, much will depend on the demand of our partners and on illegitimate sanctions.” According to Russian information, Nord Stream 1 is indispensable.
FDP presidium member Michael Theurer described the initiative as an unsuitable attempt to undermine the sanctions. “We will not let Putin blackmail us,” Theurer told the Handelsblatt.
If Russia tries to put pressure on Germany, it will still require a coordinated and unified response from the West. Russia is trying to divide Europe and that will fail, he said. The Federal Ministry of Economics did not want to comment on this when asked by the Handelsblatt.
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The foreign policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Nils Schmid, sees the Russian announcements as an attempt at blackmail and sees them as “further evidence that Russia has said goodbye as a reliable supplier of gas”. Europe must therefore now push “the search for alternative sources of supply for the transitional period” even more and accelerate the expansion of renewable energies.
Green MEP Viola von Cramon said this was not the first attempt at blackmail and would not be the last. One should not react to it immediately. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament, David McAllister (CDU), called for the outstanding solidarity agreements between the EU member states to be concluded quickly.
Russia promises to deliver – and yet sows its own doubts
The Russian state-owned company Gazprom massively throttled the delivery volume through Nord Stream 1 in June – and also justified this with the lack of a turbine from Siemens Energy. It was serviced in Canada, but was not returned to Russia because of the sanctions. As a result, only about 40 percent of the usual amount of natural gas flowed through the more than 1,200-kilometer pipeline from Russia to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Regular maintenance work has been underway on the roughly 1,200-kilometer-long tube from Russia to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since July 11.
(Photo: dpa)
Regular maintenance work has been going on since Monday, which is why no gas is currently flowing through the pipeline. The work is expected to be completed by July 21. However, the German government fears that Russia will no longer be able to turn on the gas tap even after the maintenance has been completed – in response to Western sanctions because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of using its gas as a means of exerting political pressure. “If the turbine comes after the repair, then that will allow for an increase in volume,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last Friday. A day later, Canada announced that it would deliver the turbine.
But since this week, doubts about this promise have been growing. On Wednesday, the Russian gas company Gazprom tweeted that it could not guarantee the safe operation of a “critical facility” that is part of the gas pipeline. In the interleaved tweet, Gazprom also mentioned export regulations for the Siemens turbine from Canada. Maria Zakharova’s new statement sounds a little clearer.
In any case, the consequences of a permanent delivery stop would be serious. The EU Commission expects that if the gas supply from Russia is interrupted, the European storage facilities will not be able to be filled to 80 percent by autumn, as has been targeted.
>> Read here: Freeze against Putin? What the economy and citizens have to prepare for in the event of a gas emergency
The Institut Bruegel has calculated that if the winter had normal temperatures, the last gas would be used up in February. To prevent this, gas consumption would need to be reduced by a good ten percent.
The bottleneck in the gas supply is mainly due to the fact that most of the liquefied gas on the world markets is already being bought up by European suppliers. Deliveries destined for Asian countries were even diverted to Europe because the price differences were so great.
As a result, the storage levels have increased unusually quickly in recent months and are now back to a level that is normal for this time of year. In Germany it was 64.5 percent on Thursday. That would not be enough to get through the winter.
More: Reconstruction of a state failure – How Germany ran into Putin’s energy trap