Nord Stream 1: Russia shuts major gas pipeline to Europe

BBC News:

Russia has completely halted gas supplies to Europe via a major pipeline, saying repairs are needed.

The Russian state-owned energy giant, Gazprom, said the restrictions on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would last for the next three days.

Russia has already significantly reduced gas exports via the pipeline.

But it rejects accusations of using energy supplies as a way to punish Western nations for imposing sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline stretches 1,200km (745 miles) under the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast near St Petersburg to north-eastern Germany.

It opened in 2011, and can send a maximum of 170m cubic metres of gas per day from Russia to Germany.

The pipeline was shut down for 10 days in July – again for repairs, according to Russia – and has recently been operating at just 20% capacity because of what Russia describes as faulty equipment.

The president of Germany’s network regulator has said the country will be able to cope – if Russia resumes delivery in the coming days.

“I assume that we will be able to cope with it,” Klaus Mueller told Reuters. “I trust that Russia will return to 20% on Saturday, but no one can really say.”

European leaders fear Russia could extend the outage in an attempt to drive up gas prices, which have already sharply in the past year.