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The tap on Europe’s largest gas pipeline, funneling Russian gas to the bloc, shut off at 6 a.m. Monday for ten days of maintenance, and almost no one believes it will be turned back on as scheduled.
Repairs to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which carries 55 billion cubic meters of gas each year from Russia across the Baltic Sea to Germany, are expected to give the Kremlin an opportunity to show how dependent Europe is on Russian gas. A prolonged shutdown will also undoubtedly highlight the hypocrisy of the sanctions – which free up Russian gas – which for the most part mean that Russia actually earns more from fuel exports than it has in the past decade.
Russia’s Gazprom also abruptly cut gas flows to Italy by a third on Monday, citing unplanned maintenance work, meaning one of the back-up pipelines for scheduled maintenance of Nord Stream is also running dry.
Putin to Europe: Pay for your gas in rubles or we’ll cut you off
Summer gas flows are largely used to fill reservoirs for the winter months, which were depleted after Russia cut exports when the war in Ukraine broke out. Russia also completely cut off supplies to Poland, Bulgaria, Finland and the Netherlands after those countries refused to pay for gas in rubles.
Energy experts across Europe have warned for weeks that the sanctions give the Kremlin an incentive to further weaponize Europe’s unbalanced dependence on Russian fuel. The bloc’s biggest importers, Germany and Italy, have launched plans to reduce their dependence on Russian gas, but neither country can effectively do so before 2023.
Canada, which has yet to return a Nord Stream turbine it was repairing before Russia’s invasion, angered Ukraine over the weekend when it said it would release the repair and return it to help keep gas online in Europe. Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s natural resources minister, said over the weekend it had issued a “time-limited and revocable permit” to return the turbine to further strengthen “Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to move away from Russian oil and gas.” Ukraine’s defense minister on Sunday condemned the decision to return the turbine, saying Canada was “tailoring the sanctions regime to Russia’s whims.”
The story continues
All eyes will be on the Nord Stream pipeline on July 21 when it is due to restart, but German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said they were preparing for the possibility that Russia would find excuses to stop the flow. “We are facing an unprecedented situation,” he said at the weekend. “Anything is possible.”
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