Russia has announced that it will suspend gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea for three days at the end of August. The state-owned company Gazprom announced on Friday that no gas would flow to Germany from August 31 to September 2 due to maintenance work. After that, 33 million cubic meters of natural gas should be delivered daily. This corresponds to the 20 percent of the daily maximum output to which Russia reduced deliveries a few weeks ago.
The only functioning turbine at the Portovaya compressor station must be checked and overhauled in the three days, Gazprom said. This should be done in cooperation with specialists from Siemens Energy.
Gazprom had long since throttled the gas flow to 33 million cubic meters because of allegedly necessary repairs. In order to retrieve a turbine repaired in Canada, Germany asked the government in Ottawa for an exemption from sanctions against Moscow. But when the unit was back in Germany, Gazprom showed no rush to install it. Gazprom spoke of missing papers. The federal government therefore accused Moscow of only pretending to have the technical problems.
