Gas from Russia
Putin promises gas supplies – and threatens a little later
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a joint press conference with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts
© Grigory SYSOYEV / SPUTNIK / AFP
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the gas giant Gazprom would “completely” fulfill its obligations. But a little later he threatened with reduced gas supplies.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian gas company Gazprom will “fully” fulfill its obligations. “Gazprom has fulfilled its obligations, is fulfilling them now and will continue to fulfill them in the future,” Putin said after a summit with Turkey and Iran in Tehran on Tuesday. Against the background of the Ukraine conflict and Western sanctions, Gazprom recently significantly reduced deliveries to Europe.
Hardly any Russian gas has flowed to Germany since July 11 because the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 is out of service for maintenance work. It is feared that Gazprom could keep the gas tap closed even after the work has been completed, which Berlin estimates will take about ten days.
Putin warns of reduced gas supplies
At the same time, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin warns Europe against a further reduction in Russian gas supplies. If Russia does not get back a turbine for the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline that was repaired in Canada, the daily throughput capacity of the pipeline threatens to fall again significantly at the end of July, Putin said on Wednesday night, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. “We still have a finished route – that’s Nord Stream 2. We can put it into operation,” Putin added.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline – the most important gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – was put into operation in 2011 and has a capacity of around 55 billion cubic meters per year. Since June, however, Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom has reduced gas deliveries to Germany by more than half the daily maximum to 67 million cubic meters. This was justified with the missing turbine from Siemens Energy, which Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) criticized as a pretense. The pipeline, which is more than 1,200 kilometers long, is also currently completely shut down for annual maintenance work – until Thursday as planned.
If Russia does not get the repaired turbine back, the daily throughput capacity of the pipeline threatens to fall further to 33 million cubic meters per day at the end of July because of the necessary repair of “another unit”, Putin said according to Tass. He made the statement on the sidelines of a top-level meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish Head of State Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran, which was officially primarily about the situation in civil war-torn Syria.
Putin calls for sanctions on grain shipments to be lifted
In the debate about the blockade of Ukrainian grain exports in Tehran, Putin called for Western sanctions on Russian grain exports to be lifted: “We will facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain, but we assume that all restrictions in connection with air freight deliveries for the export of Russian grain,” he said.
Western states accuse Russia of deliberately restricting the export of Ukrainian and Russian grain. Moscow, on the other hand, blames Western sanctions for a lack of exports and rising food prices worldwide. However, the EU and other countries have repeatedly emphasized that food shipments from Russia are not subject to their sanctions.
Note: This article has been updated.