Key gas pipeline from Russia to Europe restarts after break
The Hindu
As per the German news agency, operator Nord Stream AG said that gas started flowing again on Thursday morning but the flow would take a while to ramp up
Natural gas started flowing through a major pipeline from Russia to Europe on Thursday after a 10-day shutdown for maintenance, the operator said. But the gas flow was expected to fall well short of full capacity.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany had been closed since July 11 for annual maintenance work. Amid growing tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, German officials had feared that the pipeline — the country’s main source of Russian gas, which has accounted for around a third of Germany’s gas supplies — might not reopen at all.
Operator Nord Stream AG said that gas started flowing again on Thursday morning but the flow would take a while to ramp up, German news agency dpa reported.
Deliveries were expected to fall well below the pipeline's full capacity. Nord Stream said a similar amount of gas was expected to that seen before maintenance. The head of Germany's network regulator, Klaus Mueller, said on Twitter that Russia’s Gazprom had notified deliveries on Thursday of only about 30% of the pipeline's capacity.
In mid-June, Russia’s State-owned Gazprom cut the flow to 40% of capacity. It cited alleged technical problems involving equipment that partner Siemens Energy sent to Canada for overhaul and couldn’t be returned because of sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Canadian government earlier this month gave permission for the turbine that powers a compressor station at the Russian end of the pipeline to be delivered to Germany.
The German government has rejected Gazprom’s technical explanation for the gas reduction, charging repeatedly that it was a pretext for a political decision to sow uncertainty and further push up energy prices. It has said that the turbine was a replacement that was only supposed to be installed in September, but that it’s doing everything to deprive Russia of the pretext to reduce supplies.
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