The Twenty-Seven, who were worried about seeing their supply of Russian gas definitively stopped, should be partly relieved. Russia appears set to resume gas deliveries to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Saturday, after three-day downtime for maintenance. The Nord Stream company site announces that flows should restart on Saturday, from 2 a.m., at 20% of normal capacity, the same level as before the maintenance work. Announcements on expected volumes may still change and must be confirmed by actual flows. Announcements on expected volumes may still change and must be confirmed by actual flows.
The Russian gas giant, Gazprom, owner of this pipe which directly connects the Siberian gas fields to the north of Germany from where the gas is then exported to other European countries, had explained that work was ” required “ at a compressor station located in Russia. A German official had nevertheless judged the interruption of this week “technically incomprehensible”.
Germany is trying to fill its gas stocks
Europe remains on its guard. Last July, Gazprom had already carried out ten days of maintenance work on the gas pipeline which had then been restarted, but with a further drop in deliveries.
Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions imposed on Russia, the flow of gas to the Old Continent has continued to shrink, to the chagrin of Europe: before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nord Stream transported about a third of the 153 billion m3 of gas purchased annually by the EU. If Russian gas represented only 17% of France’s total imports, other countries had built a much closer dependence on Moscow, like Germany. However, the country managed to reduce the share of Russian gas in its imports from 55% to 30%.
But Berlin is worried about its ability to fill inventory in anticipation of winter. In mid-August, the head of the German energy regulator, Klaus Müller, said that the objective of 95% filling by November 1 was unattainable. “In all of our scenarios, we will fail to [l’]reach “he regretted, adding: “we will not be able to do this because some storage sites have started from a very low filling level”. But about ten days later, the German government indicated that the gas reserves were filling up “faster than expected”. The storage target set for October, at 85%, “should be reached at the beginning of September”, he assured. Gas reserves were then at 82% of their capacity.
For its part, France should soon reach 100% storage, perhaps even “before the end of summer”, assured Elisabeth Borne, on August 29. Four days earlier, they were already at 90.06%, according to the European platform Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory (AGSI). With stocks fully filled, France can last 14 weeks, against five for Spain or even three for Belgium.
(With AFP)