No fewer than 13 EU countries have either completely stopped receiving Russian gas or are partially cut off from it following Russia’s closure of Nord Stream Pipeline 1.
“13 EU states are completely or partially cut off from Russian gas,” Russia’s state-run Tass news agency said in a report monitored by Persecondnews.com.
“As you know, Nord Stream 1 has been closed for maintenance since yesterday, that is, there are no Russian gas supplies to Germany and neighbouring EU countries,” the official said.
Russian state energy company Gazprom confirmed on Wednesday that Nord Stream 1 was closed temporarily for maintenance from August 31 until September 3.
Gazprom, which cut the supply through the 1,224-kilometre pipeline to 40 per cent of capacity in June and to 20 per cent in July, said that the “only gas compressor unit” that was currently in operation had to undergo technical maintenance.
“Upon the completion of the maintenance operations, provided that no malfunctions are identified, gas transmission will be resumed at the rate of 33 million cubic metres per day,” the company said last month.
Germany, the main recipient of gas supplies via the pipeline, is prepared for the outage, officials said on Wednesday.
“I assume that we will be able to cope with it,” Klaus Mueller, president of the German network regulator told Reuters.
“I trust that Russia will return to at least 20 per cent from Saturday, but no one can really say.”
Meanwhile, Gazprom also said on Wednesday that it will stop gas supplies to French energy company Engie over payment issues, a move which increases the risk of a widening supply gap.
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