A senior executive of Russian gas exporter Gazprom says the company won’t resume natural-gas shipments via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline until a German partner repairs what it alleges is faulty equipment, raising European energy concerns as temperatures fall.
The partner, Siemens Energy, has said it hasn’t been tasked with any related repairs and countered that a fix like the one Gazprom is alleging is easily fixed and wouldn’t normally suspend deliveries.
At an economic event in Vladivostok on September 6, Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Officer Vitaly Markelov said of restarting the flow of gas that “they have to repair equipment first.”
Nord Stream 1 is the biggest pipeline for gas from Russia to Europe, historically accounting for about one-third of those sales via its annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters. It runs from Vyborg, near Russia’s border with Finland, to Lubmin in northeastern Germany.
Gazprom suspended Nord Stream 1 deliveries on August 31 for what it said was three days of routine maintenance but failed to restart the flow, citing a purported leak.
Western leaders have accused Moscow of using its energy supplies as a weapon — particularly since President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February — but face enormous challenges in pivoting to alternative sources and methods of energy production.
Ukraine has remained a major transit route for Russian gas to Europe even despite the invasion, although quantities have fallen.
Reports from multiple sources on September 6 showed that flows of Russian gas via Ukraine were continuing as usual.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week encouraged Europeans to prepare for a hard winter as “Russia is preparing a decisive energy blow on all Europeans for this winter.”
Russia has been accused for decades of threatening to withhold gas to achieve political ends, but until President Vladimir Putin’s launch of an all-out invasion of Ukraine in February it had sought to avoid interruptions to most European customers.
The Western financial and trade sanctions and Moscow’s countermoves have resulted in steep drops or cutoffs to many European countries normally reliant on Russian gas.
Moscow has repeatedly denied it uses energy supplies as a weapon.
Western countries have discussed setting a price cap on the prices paid for Russian energy supplies. Moscow has said it would stop selling such products to any country implementing a cap.
Also in Vladivostok, Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov said on September 6 that his country would respond to such price caps by simply sending more of its energy to Asia.
