Russia resumes gas flow to Europe via Nord Stream pipeline

Russia resumed pumping natural gas through its longest pipeline to Europe on Thursday after a 10-day outage, the operator said, easing immediate winter supply fears from Europe after the President Vladimir Putin warned that flows could be cut off or interrupted.

Supply via Nord Stream 1, which runs under the Baltic Sea to Germany, was stopped for maintenance on 11 July, but even before that disruption, flows were cut to 40% of the pipeline’s capacity in a dispute sparked by the invasion. from Ukraine to Russia.

Streams on Thursday returned to the 40% capacity level, Nord Stream figures showed.

Supply disruptions have hampered European efforts to replenish gas storage for the winter, raising the risk of rationing and another blow to fragile economic growth if Moscow further limits flows in retaliation for Western sanctions over the Ukraine war.

“We are in the process of resuming gas transport. It may take a few hours to reach the indicated transport volumes,” a spokesman for the pipeline operator told Reuters earlier.

Physical streams were at 29,289,682 kilowatt hours between 4am and 5am BST, the website Nord Stream 1 showed, returning to the level of pre-maintenance flows.

Klaus Mueller, chairman of Germany’s grid regulator, said the resumption of flows back to 40% of capacity was not a sign that tensions were easing. “Unfortunately, political uncertainty and the 60% cut since mid-June remain,” he said on Twitter.

Gazprom, which has a monopoly on Russian gas pipeline exports, did not respond to a request for comment.

To try to avoid a winter supply crisis, the European Commission has proposed a voluntary target for all EU states to reduce gas usage by 15% from August to March compared to usage in the same period of 2016-2021.

The Commission’s proposal would allow Brussels to make the target mandatory in the event of a supply emergency.