The renewed cut throttles the delivery volume to about 20 percent of the capacity of the pipeline, which is 167 million cubic meters of gas per day. Gazprom only resumed deliveries via Nord Stream 1 last Thursday after a ten-day maintenance. Since then, the pipeline has been running at 40 percent utilization almost consistently. According to data from Nord Stream 1, this amount flowed constantly through the pipeline on Monday.
The federal government reacted to the announcement with incomprehension: “According to our information, there is no technical reason for a reduction in deliveries,” said a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of Economics on Monday.
The reduction in delivery volumes is “no surprise,” said Federal Minister of Economics Habeck in the evening on the ARD “Tagesthemen”. However, it is annoying “that Gazprom keeps coming up with other reasons.”
Russia had already reduced the delivery volume twice in June, blaming western sanctions imposed because of the Ukraine war. They would prevent repair work on the equipment.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened further cutbacks if a defective Siemens turbine repaired in Canada did not arrive in Russia. On Monday, Gazprom again blamed western sanctions for the delays in the delivery of the turbine.
At the urging of the federal government, the Canadian government has now allowed the Siemens group to initially bring the turbine to Germany, despite the sanctions against Russia. The decision was met with strong protests in Ukraine.
According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, the turbine arrived in Germany last week. The ministry pointed out again on Monday that no exemption is required for onward delivery to Russia under EU sanctions law.
According to Siemens, there are no customs documents for importing the turbine to Russia. These could only be provided by Gazprom, a spokesman for Siemens Energy told the AFP news agency on Monday.
Habeck spoke in the “Tagesthemen” of “farce stories about this turbine”. Gazprom “doesn’t even have the guts to say we’re in an economic war with you,” he said.
After the war began, the EU imposed massive economic sanctions on Russia, but initially exempted gas imports. The war in Ukraine has caused gas prices to skyrocket around the world and highlighted the dependence of Germany and other EU countries on Russian gas supplies.
In view of the threat of supply bottlenecks in winter, the federal government last week increased the specifications for filling German gas storage facilities. An interim target of 75 percent will be introduced in September. The existing targets for October and November are increased by five percentage points to 85 and 95 percent respectively.
According to Habeck, this should prevent gas from being sold from the 23 storage facilities in Germany. With further reduced delivery volumes via Nord Stream 1, however, it will now be even more difficult to achieve these goals.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Europe to impose further sanctions on Moscow after Gazprom’s announcement. “This is an open gas war that Russia is waging against a united Europe,” Zelenskyy said in his daily video message.