The Nord Stream 1 deliveries of natural gas to the EU have ended, not to be restarted until the West decides to end the sanctions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced today, reported RT: “Problems in [gas] deliveries arose due to sanctions that have been imposed on our country and a number of companies by Western countries, including Germany and the U.K. There are no other reasons behind supply issues.” Further, it is not Gazprom’s fault that “the Europeans absolutely absurdly make a decision to refuse to service their equipment,” in violation of the contract which they had signed.
Peskov went on to explain that Nord Stream 1 operations now hinge upon “one piece of equipment that needs serious maintenance.” The turbines have not received their normal servicing from Germany’s Siemens Energy, due to the sanctions regime. The Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller has warned repeatedly of the inevitable breakdown of the delivery system; so, it never should have come down to one last functioning turbine, now going bad.
Evidently, a malfunction involving an oil leak in a turbine was detected on Sept. 2 at the Portovaya compressor station near St. Petersburg, Russia. Siemens Energy was also involved in that inspection, so there is no claim from them that Gazprom is making up the problem. The turbine can only be fixed in Canada, but its sanctions stand in the way of fixing the turbine and sending it back to Russia.
Even if Gazprom’s biggest customer in the European Union, Germany, might push for some exception to the sanctions to be made for this one turbine, it is not clear, with today’s announcement, that Moscow will continue with the sanctions game. Europe may be in for a big hurt.
