Nord Stream 1 went into maintenance

Alexey Gromov, Principal Director on Energy Studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Kommersant FM radio station on the shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline.

Gazprom stopped the Nord Stream for maintenance work. The company promises to resume fuel pumping on September 2. Against this background, gas prices exceeded $2.9 thousand per thousand cubic meters.

Such preventive work is carried out every year on the eve of the heating season, however, as a rule, the pumping of fuel is not stopped because of this, Aleksey Gromov notes:

“Usually, the market does not particularly notice such works, since the gas pipeline does not stop. One or two turbines are being decommissioned, and pumping is reduced, but only slightly. In the situation with Nord Stream 1, the preventive maintenance of the only turbine currently operating today leads to a temporary shutdown for three days. Therefore, there is so much noise around this, in general, an ordinary event.

From the point of view of technical maintenance regulations, as a rule, these works are carried out on time.

From the point of view of the filling of European storage facilities, the basic requirements of the European Commission on the minimum allowable level of 80% of the rated active power have already been formally met in many countries, and a number of others will reach this mark in the coming days. But the use of underground gas storage facilities is envisaged to cover consumption peaks in the autumn-winter heating season, which has not yet begun.

This situation, against the backdrop of a sharp decrease in the current pumping of Russian gas through Nord Stream 1, is causing concern among European consumers. Under the current conditions, Europe has a difficult alternative: either expect gas prices to rise as the autumn-winter heating season approaches, or start using underground storage ahead of time.”