By Philip Fabian and Jeanne Plaumann
Putin’s new gas blackmail – after the maintenance of the pipeline Nord Stream 1 the gas should flow again. This emerges from preliminary data from the network operator Gascade on Wednesday afternoon.
But: probably only to 30 percent of the capacity!
This was announced by the head of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, in a Twitter post on Wednesday evening. The Russian gas company Gazprom has reduced the gas delivery volume announced for Thursday via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
According to the announcements, around 530 gigawatt hours would now be delivered on Thursday, according to Müller. Further changes are possible. Before the scheduled maintenance on the pipeline ended on Thursday, it was about 40 percent utilized.
It is precisely this level that is already causing the federal government to tremble. 40 percent is the magic number that circulates in the government.
► If Russia increases gas deliveries via Nord Stream 1 to 40 percent, Germany will get through the winter without a gas emergency. If it is less, there is a risk of massive supply failures!
Means: 30 percent should cause a lot of chills in the government!
And even if the entire federal territory is not affected by a gas emergency, it can become scarce in individual federal states, it said.
At the meeting, the government already assumed that Russia would NOT completely restart gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after the maintenance and would invent new “excuses” for this.