West News Wire: According to German authorities, the major Russian energy company Gazprom has dramatically reduced gas exports to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline to around 20% of its capacity.
A reduction in supply to 33 million cubic metres per day, or half as much as it had been supplying when service restarted last week after a 10-day maintenance period, was announced by the state-run Russian business on Monday.
In response for Western sanctions over Moscow’s conflict in Ukraine, EU members have accused Russia of restricting supplies. One of the pipeline’s final two working turbines has been shut down, according to Gazprom, because of the “technical state of the engine.”
The German economy ministry dismissed the explanation, saying there was “no technical reason for a reduction of deliveries”. Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann spoke on Wednesday of a “power play” by Moscow.
“The Federal Government has taken note of the renewed reduction of gas supplies by Gazprom and is monitoring the situation very closely. The supply contracts are not being honoured at this point in time,” she added.
Klaus Mueller, head of Germany’s energy regulator, said gas flows had dropped to 20 percent of the pipeline’s capacity on Wednesday from 40 percent.
“We’ll see today if it stays that way,” he said in a statement.
In parallel, Italian energy major Eni said Gazprom had informed the group it would only deliver “approximately 27 million cubic metres” on Wednesday, down from around 34 million cubic metres in recent days.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed EU sanctions for the limited supply.
“Technical pumping capacities are down, more restricted. Why? Because the process of maintaining technical devices is made extremely difficult by the sanctions adopted by Europe,” Peskov said.
Mueller said gas supply was now a part of Russian foreign policy and possibly Moscow’s “war strategy”.
Natural gas prices have surged on Europe’s TTF benchmark to levels not seen since early March and are nearly six times higher than they were a year ago.
Soaring energy prices are fuelling record inflation, squeezing people’s spending power and heightening concerns that Europe could plunge into recession if it does not save enough gas to get through the cold months.
Mueller praised consumers and industry for voluntarily reducing energy use, saying that even correcting for warmer summer temperatures, recent consumption had been cut between 5 and 7 percent.
