Contrary to expectations, no Russian gas has flowed through Nord Stream 1 since the morning. There have been leaks like this before - without causing a delivery stop.
The German company Siemens Energy, which has supplied turbines to Gazprom, does not consider the reasons given by the company for the gas supply stoppage through Nord Stream 1 to be implausible. "As the manufacturer of the turbines, we can only state that such a finding does not constitute a technical reason for the cessation of operations." Gazprom justifies the cessation of deliveries with an oil leak in the Portovaya compressor station. The gas flow remains stopped until it is eliminated.
According to Siemens Energy, such leaks do not normally affect the operation of a turbine and can be sealed on site - this is a routine procedure as part of maintenance work. According to the company, the occurrence of this type of leak has not brought operations to a standstill in the past either. Siemens Energy is currently not commissioned with maintenance work, but is ready. In the Portovaya compressor station there are also enough other turbines ready for operation of Nord Stream 1.
According to Gazprom, the leak in the compressor station was discovered during maintenance work carried out jointly with experts from Siemens Energy. The leaked oil was found in several places. It is not possible to guarantee the safe operation of the last remaining gas turbine there. It was said that such oil spills had happened in the past. A letter about the complaints about the Trent 60 unit with the number 24 and about the necessary repairs went to the head of Siemens Energy, Christian Bruch.
Contrary to what has been announced, no gas will flow through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline from this Saturday. The state-owned company Gazprom announced this on Telegram on Friday evening. Gas was expected to flow through the pipeline again after the announced three-day maintenance work was completed in the morning.
The Federal Ministry of Economics is unimpressed. A spokeswoman said on Friday evening that the gas storage facilities are currently 84.3 percent full. "The October storage target of 85 percent should therefore already be reached in the first days of September." Good progress is also being made with supply via other delivery routes than Russian pipelines and new landing capacities for liquid gas. Germany now receives by far the most natural gas from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium.
According to the Federal Network Agency, around 2,900 gigawatt hours of natural gas flowed from these countries to Germany on Thursday. For comparison: On Monday, the last day before the announced supply reduction, Nord Stream 1 transported around 348 gigawatt hours of Russian natural gas. The quantity stored was always a multiple of this delivery quantity from Russia. On Wednesday, for example, 965 gigawatt hours of natural gas were stored in Germany, and at the same time 354 gigawatt hours were withdrawn from storage. The bottom line is that 611 gigawatt hours remained in storage.
