By Jeanne Plaumann and Christopher Buhl
The Russian gas giant Gazprom cannot guarantee the operation of its Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1. The Kremlin group announced this in an official statement on Wednesday.
The statement said: “Gazprom does not have any documents on the basis of which the Siemens concern would be able to export from this country the gas turbine engine intended for the Portovaya compressor station, which is currently undergoing a number of overhaul works in Canada.”
That is why it is “complicated”, according to Gazprom, “to give objective assessments of how the situation with safe operation of the Portovaya compressor station, which is known to be of crucial importance for the Nord Stream gas pipeline, will continue to develop.”
Parts of the pipeline have been under maintenance since early Monday morning (July 11), including at a compressor station in Lubmin (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania). The gas flow was gradually reduced and finally shut off for the maintenance, which was estimated to take ten days.
► The installation of the turbine mentioned by Gazprom is also decisive for the restart of the most important gas route to Germany: This was brought to Canada for repairs. Because of the sanctions against Russia, Canada granted permission for an export to Germany (instead of Russia to Gazprom) over the weekend.
The delivery of the turbine is intended to take away the arguments from Kremlin tyrant Vladimir Putin (69) and his government that the pipeline cannot be operated as usual due to technical problems. Among other things, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (56, Greens) had expressed acute concerns that Russia could use the maintenance to throttle gas deliveries to Germany at will or stop them altogether. The turbine should now get to the place of use as “quickly as possible”.
The Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline, through which Russian natural gas has been flowing to Germany since 2011, ends in Lubmin near Greifswald Photo: sts htf
Habeck had already doubted the Russian justification when the gas flow was throttled through Nord Stream 1 in mid-June. At that time, Gazprom justified the step with the turbine of the compressor station. Habeck at the time: “The reason given by the Russian side is simply put forward.” It was “obviously the strategy to create uncertainty and drive up prices”.