Germany will wait until at least Monday to find out whether Russia has cut off the supply of natural gas through a key pipeline, days after it completed maintenance work, Bloomberg reported.
It is noted that work on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is expected to be completed on Thursday, but it will be too early to tell if flows have completely stopped, a person with knowledge of the process told the agency. That would delay any move Berlin needs to deal with a crisis that has been building for weeks and threatens the country’s economy.
Even before it was shut down for maintenance last week, the pipeline was operating at just 40 percent of capacity after a turbine sent to Canada for repairs was stranded there due to sanctions against Russia. Kommersant newspaper reported this week that the components were flown back to Germany and will then be flown to Russia. A government official said it would take 5-10 days to re-install it.
The outage has caused chaos in Berlin and wider Europe as countries scramble to find alternative sources of supply. Concerns are growing among officials that Moscow will not resume the flows once the maintenance work is finished. A complete shutdown could potentially shrink Germany’s economy by 1.5% in a worst-case scenario.
It is currently unclear where the turbine is located. Neither Siemens Energy AG, which manufactured the component and is responsible for the repairs, nor the German government confirmed the Kommersant report.
Concerns about the return of natural gas flows are growing because Gazprom also said other components necessary to resume full supply also need maintenance. Germany has accused Russia of using the gas supply as a “weapon” and said the turbine is being used as an excuse to cut off flows.
“This turbine has only been used as a cover all this time,” Economy Ministry spokeswoman Beate Baron said on Monday. “This is a replacement turbine. Nevertheless, we will do everything to deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of this pretext.”
Source: Capital
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