Germany’s gas supply is currently secured, but the situation is tense and a deterioration cannot be ruled out, the country’s gas grid regulator said on Saturday.
The day before, Gazprom, the Russian state company in the sector, announced that the suspension of gas supplies to Europe has no end date. The operation of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline was interrupted three days ago and, according to the company, would remain until this Saturday for maintenance.
But Russian technicians found an oil leak in the pipeline engine. According to them, the main turbine at the Portovaia compressor station near St. Petersburg cannot operate safely. They did not set a time frame for repairing the structure.
“The defects alleged by the Russian side are not a technical reason for the interruption of operations,” the German regulator said on Saturday in its daily report on the gas situation.
Gazprom said Saturday that Siemens was ready to carry out the repairs, but there was nowhere available to do the work. Siemens denied this and said it was not hired, but was available. He added that the leak reported by Gazprom normally does not affect the operation of a turbine and can be sealed on site.
“Regardless of this, we have already pointed out several times that there are enough additional turbines available at the Portovaia compressor station for Nord Stream 1 to work,” a company spokesperson said.
Nord Stream 1 is the main gas pipeline on the European continent. In practice, it connects western Russia to northwest Germany, which distributes the fluid to other European countries. Before the current suspension, however, the structure was operating at only 20% of capacity.
The Kremlin blames Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine War for stopping gas flow on Nord Stream 1. Western officials have rejected that claim and Siemens said the sanctions do not prohibit maintenance.
Europe accuses Russia of using the gas supply as a weapon in what Moscow called an “economic war” with the West over the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Asked about the suspension on Saturday, economic commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said the European Union expected Russia to respect the energy contracts it had agreed to, but was prepared to rise to the challenge if Moscow did not.
