Russia shut down gas supplies via Europe's key supply route on Wednesday, thereby intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels as well as raising the prospects of recession and energy rationing in some of the region's richest countries. Russia cited the need to carry out repairs as the reason for the shutdown. Russian state energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) said Nord Stream 1, the biggest pipeline carrying gas to its top customer Germany, will be out for maintenance from 0100 GMT on Aug. 31 to 0100 GMT on Sept. 3 according to energy market information disclosure platform Seeburger. The Nord Stream 1pipeline stretches 1,200km (745 miles) under the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast near St Petersburg to north-eastern Germany. It opened in 2011 and can send a maximum of 170 million cubic metres of gas per day from Russia to Germany.
The halt on the Baltic Sea pipeline at 5 am on Wednesday would last for three days, Gazprom, the Russian state energy company said. It had warned two weeks ago that the outage was due but the German government claimed it had not been formally notified, instead it received information via social media after it was posted on Gazprom's Telegram channel.
The German government rejects the claim, calling it a "pretense". It said Nord Stream was "fully operational" and that there were no technical issues.
Europe governments fear Moscow could extend the gas outage in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed after it invaded Ukraine and have accused Russia of using energy supplies as a "weapon of war". Moscow denies doing this and has cited technical reasons for supply cuts.
In recent months, the gas flow had been reduced to 40% of expected levels. In July, the flow was stopped for scheduled maintenance and resumed again after 10 days but at only 20% of capacity, with Moscow blaming the failure of Germany to return vital equipment due to sanctions imposed on Russia.
The president of Germany's network regulator has said the country will be able to cope if Russia resumes delivery in the coming days.
"I assume that we will be able to cope with it," Klaus Mueller told Reuters. "I trust that Russia will return to 20% on Saturday, but no one can really say."
