EPA
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NOS News•yesterday, 18:08•Amended yesterday, 21:39
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Russian state gas company Gazprom will reduce deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to 20 percent of maximum capacity from Wednesday. That is about 33 million cubic meters of gas per day.
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According to Gazprom, there are still problems with the import of a turbine, which went to Canada for repair. According to the company, those problems are the result of EU and UK sanctions against Russia. Gazprom cut gas supplies to about 40 percent of maximum capacity last month. At that time, too, reference was made to the problems with the turbine.
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Germany does not believe that this is the real cause of the supply problems and thinks that Russia is supplying less gas to the EU for political reasons.
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Last week there were already major concerns that Russia would throttle the gas supply even further because Nord Stream 1 was temporarily shut down for maintenance. Those fears seemed to materialize when several customers were told that Gazprom may have invoked force majeure.
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Price up
After Russia’s announcement that the supply will be further limited, the price of natural gas went up. On Monday, the futures contract TTF, which is considered to be leading, rose to 179 euros per megawatt hour. That is 12 percent more expensive than last Friday’s price.
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The European Commission says that this scenario has already been taken into account. That was partly the reason for the proposal to ask all EU countries to save 15 percent on gas consumption in the coming period, according to a statement from the Commission. Tomorrow the energy ministers of the member states will discuss the gas crisis.
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Energy specialist Jilles van den Beukel (The Hague Center for Strategic Studies) says that Europe has no choice but to save. “We will have to save as Europe, there is no plan b. We also have to supply a lot of liquid gas, but that is already happening.”
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Van den Beukel says that this decision by Russia will also put upward pressure on the gas price in the longer term. “Both the coming winter and maybe the next 1, 2 or maybe 3 years.”
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Consumers will feel this in the wallet. “The price is about ten times the normal average price of the last ten years before it started to increase. That’s an awful lot and we’ve never seen that before.”
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