Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom said Monday that it will further restrict gas flow to the European Union via its key Nord Stream 1 pipeline beginning this week, citing additional technical problems as EU leaders scramble to fill their storage tanks and prepare for the winter season.
The reductions will cut Nord Stream 1 delivery to just 20%, Gazprom said, half of the current, already-reduced 40% levels that have raised the risk of gas rationing within the bloc. News of the reduction comes just days after Nord Stream 1 was restarted following a 10-day maintenance period, after which output has remained far below typical levels.
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The 20% amount also means that, short of massive, blocwide gas reductions, Germany will almost certainly not have enough gas to make it through the winter. The country’s leaders, including German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, have described the threat of a complete Russian gas cutoff as a “political nightmare scenario.”
In announcing the reductions, Gazprom blamed a turbine — a different one than it has previously said was at issue — that it said needs to be sent out for repair, though that excuse has been widely dismissed by EU leaders as a politically motivated pretext for a larger, more permanent cutoff.
The German Economic Ministry dismissed that, however, saying in a statement that there is “no technical reason” for the new reduction: “The sanctions approval requirements for the delivery of the turbine in question have been met,” it said.
EU leaders have raced in recent days to craft new emergency measures as the bloc looks to protect itself from an abrupt cutoff of Russian supplies.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this month that 12 EU member states are “already directly affected by partial or total cutoff” of Russian gas. And last week, leaders warned that an abrupt halt in Russian gas flow could risk reducing the EU’s gross domestic product by as much as 1.5%.
Last week, the European Commission introduced a plan that called on countries to halt their gas use by 15% — a voluntary target that would become binding in a supply emergency — and leaders had planned today to introduce a revised, more flexible option for that plan. It is unclear whether Russia’s announcement will send them back to the drawing board.
Still, the EU’s options to secure near-term alternative gas supplies remain meager.
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“It is clear that any extension of the Nord Stream outage would place even more pressure on the German and European gas markets in terms of storage injections, overall gas supply, and market pricing,” Ed Cox, head of global LNG at commodity intelligence firm ICIS, told the Washington Examiner in a recent email.
