The way is clear for the delivery of the Siemens turbine for the “Nord Stream 1” gas pipeline, which will be serviced in Canada. The government in Ottawa announced last night that they would make an exception to the sanctions once morest Russia and send the turbine back to Germany. Russia had justified a throttling of gas deliveries through the pipeline, among other things, with the missing turbine.
The German federal government had meanwhile emphasized that it considered this to be a pretense and saw that Russia was using gas supplies as a political weapon. Russia, on the other hand, had said that gas supplies to Europe would be increased once more when the turbine repaired in Canada was returned.
“Temporary Authorization”
The Canadian government announced yesterday that Siemens Canada would be granted a temporary and revocable license to allow repaired Nord Stream 1 turbines to be returned to Germany. Without the necessary supply of natural gas, the German economy would have major problems, and there was a risk that Germans would no longer be able to heat their homes in winter, they said.
A spokesman for the German federal government recently spoke of “positive signals” from Canada regarding the return of the turbine. The government has argued the turbine should be reinstated so that Russia can no longer invoke a technical problem.
Canada, in turn, did not like that because Ottawa feared violating Western Russia sanctions if the turbine was delivered to a compressor station in Russia. A solution was therefore considered in which the turbine would first be delivered to Germany.
Maintenance work from Monday
The cut in gas supplies from “Nord Stream 1” has led to emergency measures in Germany. Among other things, the government is concerned that the German gas storage facilities might not be sufficiently full by autumn to also get companies that depend on gas for production to get through the winter well. Maintenance work on the pipeline will begin tomorrow and should last ten days. The fear was repeatedly expressed that Russia might then send even less gas through the pipeline or none at all.
