Key gas pipeline from Russia to Europe restarts after break | World News,The Indian Express
Amid growing tensions over Russia's war in Ukraine, German officials had feared that the pipeline — the country's main source of Russian gas might not reopen at all.
Natural gas started flowing through a major pipeline from Russia to Europe on Thursday after a 10-day shutdown for maintenance, the operator said. But the gas flow was expected to fall well short of full capacity.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany had been closed since July 11 for annual maintenance work. Amid growing tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, German officials had feared that the pipeline — the country’s main source of Russian gas, which has accounted for around a third of Germany’s gas supplies — might not reopen at all.
Operator Nord Stream AG said that gas started flowing again Thursday morning but the flow would take a while to ramp up, German news agency DPA reported.
Deliveries were expected to fall well below the pipeline’s full capacity. Nord Stream said a similar amount of gas was expected to that seen before maintenance. The head of Germany’s network regulator, Klaus Mueller, said on Twitter that Russia’s Gazprom had notified deliveries Thursday of only about 30% of the pipeline’s capacity.
In mid-June, Russia’s state-owned Gazprom cut the flow to 40% of capacity. It cited alleged technical problems involving equipment that partner Siemens Energy sent to Canada for overhaul and couldn’t be returned because of sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Rating: 5