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The Russian state energy company Gazprom he did know through a press release on Telegram that starting from Wednesday 27 July gas supplies to Europe will be halved, due to the maintenance of another turbine of the Nord Stream pipeline. The pipeline, which transports Russian natural gas to Western Europe via the Baltic Sea, is currently already operating at 40 per cent of its capacity, due to the continuous cuts implemented in recent weeks; since Wednesday the flow will be reduced further, to 20 per cent of Nord Stream’s capacity.
For weeks Gazprom has justified the continuous cuts in supplies by citing technical issues and maintenance. Several European governments and analysts, however, argue that this is a pretext, and that the gas cuts represent a response to the sanctions imposed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an important weapon of blackmail towards countries (such as Germany and Italy itself) which depend heavily on Russian gas. On 11 July, the Nord Stream was closed for ten days for the maintenance of a turbine. In Europe, the fear was that it was an excuse to permanently cancel supplies, and even the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen had defined the total interruption of gas flows from Russia to Europe as one “probable scenario“. On 21 July, however, the pipeline had resumed operation, albeit at 40 per cent of its capacity (but still in line with the levels prior to 11 July).
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin had already stressed on that occasion that other turbines in the pipeline needed overhaul, predicting that Moscow would probably have to reduce the flow rate of the pipeline again. In particular, Putin had mentioned the need to receive technical and legal guarantees sufficient to put one back in its place Siemens turbine, which was sent to Canada for repairs and was stranded in the country due to sanctions. According to the German news agency Dpa at the moment the turbine would be located in Cologne, Germany, pending authorization for the transfer from Russia. Given that in this case, therefore, an exception has been made to the sanctioning regime, Russia’s hope is that, by playing the weapon of further reductions in supplies, the sanctions can be bypassed or relaxed.
It is not clear how long the new supply cut will last. For months, European countries have been working to find alternative sources to Russian gas in anticipation of a possible definitive interruption of supplies, as part of which the European Commission has presented in recent days a plan to reduce gas consumption by member states by 15 percent.
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