Three days without Russian gas: Europeans are once more on alert as deliveries via the Nord Stream gas pipeline are due to stop on Wednesday for maintenance work amid soaring energy prices.
Announced by the Russian giant Gazprom, this interruption is linked to “necessary” work in a compressor station of the pipe which directly connects the Siberian gas fields to the north of Germany, from where the gas is then exported to other countries. other European countries.
This maintenance, scheduled until Saturday, must be carried out “every 1,000 hours”, assures the energy company, owner of the gas pipeline.
But in the context of the war in Ukraine, energy is at the heart of a showdown between Moscow and the West, who regularly accuse Russia of using gas “as a weapon”.
Gazprom has reduced the quantities delivered by Nord Stream by 80% over the past few months.
For the boss of the German Network Agency, Klaus Müller, the work that is beginning is “technically incomprehensible”.
Experience shows that Russia “takes a political decision following each so-called + maintenance +”, he observed, seeing in it a new pretext to increase pressure on Ukraine’s allies.
– Prices jump –
In addition to fears of energy shortages this winter – a consequence of lower gas deliveries – there is a new jump in electricity prices which have reached record highs in recent days, risking soaring consumer bills.
Asked regarding the resumption of flows at the end of the three-day break, the spokesperson for the Russian government Dmitry Peskov assured “that apart from the technical problems caused by the sanctions, nothing interferes with the deliveries”.
Western capitals “have imposed sanctions once morest Russia, which do not allow normal maintenance and repair work to be carried out”, he stressed.
Statements that are not very reassuring in view of past events: in July, Gazprom had already carried out ten days of maintenance work on Nord Stream.
The company had reopened the gas tap at the end of this work but by reducing a little more the quantities delivered which currently stand at 20% of the normal capacity of the gas pipeline.
The fault, according to Moscow, to a missing turbine and which might not be returned to Russia because of the sanctions. Germany, where the turbine is located, ensures on the contrary that it is Moscow which is blocking the return of this key piece.
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nord Stream transported around a third of the 153 billion m3 of gas purchased annually by the EU.
– Efforts pay off –
In Lubmin, the Baltic Sea port where the gas pipeline ends, there is also uncertainty: “In July it was a long-planned regular maintenance, this time it was not planned and we don’t know what is behind this operation,” an official from Gascade, a company that transports gas delivered by Nord Stream across Germany, told AFP.
Faced with the risk of a major energy crisis this winter, Europe’s leading economy has been struggling for several months to find alternatives to Russian gas, on which it is particularly dependent, and to reduce its consumption.
These efforts are starting to pay off, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany is now “in a much better position” to face the coming months.
The gas storage target set by the government for October, at 85%, should be reached “from the beginning of September”, according to the government.
At the same time, German industry, which is particularly energy-intensive, consumed 21.3% less gas in July compared to the average for the same months between 2018 and 2021.
And the increase in the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is on track: several floating terminals should come into operation this winter.
The first of them must equip the port of Lubmin and allow it to compensate for part of the volumes that no longer arrive via Nord Stream.
“We hope to be able to inject gas into the distribution network on December 1,” said Stephan Knabe of Deutsche ReGas, the company behind this LNG terminal project.