Gas deliveries resume through German-Russian Nord Stream 1 pipeline
- Post By Ivan Kolekevski
- 06:15, 21 July, 2022
Berlin, 21 July 2022 (dpa/MIA) - Gas deliveries have resumed via the German-Russian Nord Stream 1 pipeline after maintenance work, a spokesman for the company confirmed to dpa on Thursday morning.
The ten-day maintenance outage reduced flows to zero on July 11, and there had been fears Moscow could decide not to turn supplies back on at a time when Europe is already facing an energy crisis.
The Nord Stream AG spokesman said it would take some time to reach the usual gas transport levels.
He said the latest gas supply volumes were the same as those announced before the maintenance period - around 67 million cubic metres per day - and correspond to about 40% of maximum supply capacity.
But it is possible for volumes to change over the course of a day, with some time needed for changes to take effect.
Gazprom had initially announced it would supply around 800 GWh of gas on Thursday, Klaus Müller, the head of Germany's gas and electricity regulator the Federal Network Agency Klaus Müller had tweeted Wednesday evening.
But the Russian state-owned energy firm later lowered the volume to about 530 GWh or 30% capacity, Müller said.
Russia was hit with sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine in February. Russia responded by partially or fully cutting off gas supplies to European countries.
The supply volume in the coming months is likely to have a major impact on private customers and Germany's economy in general as gas prices are expected to rise.
How much gas comes through the pipeline will also impact how much Germany can store ahead of the winter heating season and whether there will be gas shortages.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday that gas volumes could drop as low as 33 million cubic metres by the end of July if a gas turbine sent to Canada for repairs wasn't returned to Russia soon. German officials have said Russia is using the delay in returning the turbine as a pretext.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline has a full daily capacity of around 167 million cubic metres of gas. In June, before the maintenance shutdown, Gazprom reduced that volume to just 67 million cubic metres per day.