Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom resumed natural gas deliveries via its Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline early Thursday, German news outlets reported, following a 10-day shutdown for planned maintenance.
The news temporarily assuages the fears of Germany and other European Union countries, which had warned that Russia might be using the temporary shutdown as a pretext to halt more permanently deliveries to the bloc via its key natural gas pipeline.
But gas flow remained far below normal capacity.
As of Thursday afternoon, leaders said that Nord Stream 1 gas flow had returned to pre-maintenance levels, which had already been cut to 40% capacity ahead of the 10-day outage.
“In view of the missing 60% and the political instability, there is no reason yet to give the all-clear,” German network regulator president Klaus Mueller said on Twitter.
The reduced flow comes after the European Commission unveiled its new emissions reduction plan Wednesday calling for all EU member nations to cut their gas use by 15% voluntarily. The plan also includes more binding contingency measures that would allow Brussels to make such cuts mandatory in the event of an energy emergency, should Russia halt gas flow to the rest of Europe.
The EU’s proposed emissions reductions plan is a response to Moscow continually holding the bloc hostage with near-constant threats of supply disruption or complete cutoffs.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Leaders noted as much in their proposal, saying that the recent escalation of gas supply disruptions from Russia “points to significant risk that a complete and protracted halt of Russian gas supplies may materialise in an abrupt and unilateral way.”
