When the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the main natural gas artery between Russia and Germany, was taken offline last week for 10 days of scheduled maintenance, European leaders said Russian President Vladimir Putin would not. I started preparing for the possibilities. Switch it back on in retaliation for opposition to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
But Putin warned that supply could be cut further, but suggested that gas would begin to flow to Europe after work on a pipeline managed by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom was completed on Thursday. did.
The European Commission has called on 27 members of the block to immediately take steps to reduce gas consumption by 15%. “Russia is threatening us. Russia is using energy as a weapon,” Commission Chairman Ursula von der Reyen told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.
However, analysts said that if Russia stopped the flow of gas to Europe, Putin would control supply and prices as Russia lost its leverage in the economic battles it had against the continent since the invasion of Ukraine. He points out that he will be able to do it.
Putin told reporters in Tehran late Tuesday after meeting with Iranian and Turkish leaders, warning that Gazprom would send “half the intended amount” through the Nord Stream pipeline. Prior to being shut down on July 11th for annual maintenance, the flow had already been reduced to 40% of capacity.
Analysts say that maintaining such a diminished flow of natural gas could be beneficial to Russian leaders, allowing Europeans to remain in protracted uncertainty and nearly panic. Said there is. Russia has already shut down its gas supply through other major pipelines to Europe, which crosses Poland and Ukraine.
“As long as Putin maintains some gas flow in Nord Stream 1, he enjoys both income and leverage,” said a former State Department energy diplomat who served the Obama administration’s first term. One David L. Goldwin said. “When he cuts off supply, he loses both and never goes back.”
European gas prices have skyrocketed three to four times a year ago, and inflation has skyrocketed as temperatures begin to fall, raising concerns about social unrest.
The European Union imported 45 percent of its natural gas from Russia last year. It fell to just 28 percent in the first three months of the year. At the same time, gas imports across the block increased due to a 72% surge in liquefied natural gas purchases.
Gazprom was sent to Montreal for repairs and accused the reduction of flow through the Nord Stream of turbines that could not be returned due to sanctions against Russia. German officials have challenged Gazprom’s claim that turbines may have caused such flow reductions.
Since then, the German government has ensured the return of equipment manufactured and repaired by Siemens Energy at its Canadian factory. However, Putin said another of the six compressor turbines near Russia’s Baltic coast is currently in need of refurbishment, indicating that some other turbines are also problematic.
“If you come one more, that’s good. Two work, and if it doesn’t come, there’s one, which will be only 30 million cubic meters per day,” he told reporters. rice field. That’s less than 20 percent of the pipeline’s capacity of 160 million cubic meters of gas per day, or 5.6 billion cubic feet.
Record Nord Stream website Obvious tests showed that a small amount of gas flowed through the pipeline on Tuesday afternoon. A site operated by the Gascade network provider showed that capacity was reserved through Nord Stream on Thursday. These do not guarantee that gas will flow, but may indicate Russia’s continued interest in gas plumbing to Europe.
Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, said keeping the flow in the Nord Stream low could strengthen Russia’s position and weaken Europe’s determination if the war lasts.
“Maintaining Europe’s dependence on Russia and agitating uncertainty about its natural gas supply will only help push prices up,” he said, Putin wants to keep Nord Stream online. This is one of the reasons. Prasad said it has the added appeal of “having some control over Europe’s economic fate.”
But this week’s recovery from Russia will help them continue in the future, or achieve the goal of Germany and its European partners filling their gas storage tanks to 80% capacity by early November. We do not guarantee that it will be sufficient. In Germany, where half of the homes are heated by natural gas and fuel is needed for the chemical, steel and paper industries, storage levels have reached 65% by Wednesday, just above the European average.
This week, von der Leyen visited Azerbaijan and signed a contract to double Azerbaijan’s natural gas imports to at least 20 billion cubic meters (706 billion cubic feet) by 2027. Sources other than Russia.
Germany turned to the Netherlands and Norway in search of more gas and purchased more liquefied natural gas from the United States and Qatar. However, Germany does not have any of the 26 European LNG terminals needed to return gas from cold to gas.
German Minister of Economy and Deputy Prime Minister Robert Habeck has secured € 2.94 billion to rent four floating LNG terminals. The first is scheduled to go live by the end of the year.
But if Europe is facing an unusually cold winter, that may not be enough to ensure that Germany keeps its homes warm and its factories up and running. Germany has already activated two steps in a three-stage “gas emergency” plan, replacing coal-fired power plants with gas-powered power plants and imagining what would happen if the gas were completely shut down. I’m running on.
For some observers, the panic of the last few weeks is exactly what Putin wants.
“Will he give us gas? Will he cut the tide? Europe is hanging in Putin’s mouth again,” he said. Janice Kruge, a Russian analyst at the German Institute for International Security in Berlin, said: I wrote it on Twitter. “But the story of Nord Stream 1 continues, but he definitely loves all that part.”
Melissa Eddie reported from Berlin and Patricia Cohen from London. Matina Stevis-Gridnev Contributed to the report from Brussels, Anton Troy Anovsky From Berlin.
