Russia suspended gas supplies via a major pipeline to Europe on Wednesday, intensifying the economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospect of a recession and energy rationing in some of the region’s richest countries.
The outage through Nord Stream 1 is for maintenance and means no gas flows into Germany between 01:00 GMT on August 31 and 01:00 GMT on September 3, according to Russian energy giant Gazprom.
Data from the pipeline operator’s website showed flows dropped to zero between 02:00 and 03:00 GMT on Wednesday.
Increasing restrictions on European gas supplies would exacerbate an energy crisis that has already sent wholesale gas prices up more than 400 percent since August last year, causing a painful cost-of-living crisis for consumers, increasing costs for businesses and forcing governments to spend billions. to ease the burden.
And unlike last month’s 10-day maintenance of the pipeline, the new maintenance was announced just less than two weeks ago.
Moscow has already reduced supplies via Nord Stream 1 to 40 percent of its capacity in June and to 20 percent in July, blaming maintenance problems and sanctions it says prevent equipment and installations from being returned.
Gazprom said the new shutdown is necessary to carry out maintenance on the pipeline’s only remaining compressor.
Russia has completely cut off supplies to Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland, and reduced flows through other pipelines since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
(Archyde.com)
