First maintenance, now an alleged design flaw in a turbine: No more gas is flowing through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline. Minister of Economics Habeck does not expect that Russia will open the gas tap for the pipeline again.
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck is preparing for the fact that Russia will no longer supply gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. "There's still a bit of gas coming through the Ukraine pipeline, but Nord Stream 1 being reopened isn't one of the scenarios I'm assuming," said the Greens politician on ZDF.
The Russian state-owned company Gazprom did not resume gas deliveries to Europe on Saturday after scheduled maintenance on the turbine. The company attributes the delivery stop via the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline to an alleged design flaw in the Siemens Energy turbine used. Because of the increased risk of fire and explosion, the Rostechnadzor technical supervisor has prohibited the turbine from continuing to operate, Gazprom said in Moscow. A company with the identified deficiencies contradicts "the norms of Russian legislation".
A spokesman for Siemens Energy said that for the time being, the assessment that the reported findings do not constitute a reason for the cessation of operations applies. "Such leaks do not normally affect the operation of a turbine and can be sealed on site," said the spokesman. In the past, too, there had been no standstill due to such oil leaks. Politicians in the West suspect a political background for the delivery stop. "Putin's Russia has breached its contract," said Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Russia is no longer a reliable energy supplier.
The Kremlin, on the other hand, has denied the blame for the Russian gas cut and blamed it on the West. "We see endless attempts to somehow shift the responsibility for what is happening on ourselves, we categorically reject these attempts and insist that the collective West - in this case the EU, Canada and Great Britain - is to blame for the situation becoming the current one point has arrived," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency. Peskow emphasized that this was not an "unfounded" claim. He hopes that the last remaining turbine at the Portovaya compressor station can somehow be repaired, Peskov said.
Ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, however, sounded a little different. He presented Germany with "hybrid warfare" against Russia at the weekend and justified the Russian gas supply stop with Berlin's "unfriendly" behavior in the Ukraine conflict.
