The Russian gas consortium Gazprom carried out the announcement made the day before that it would suspend gas transit to Europe through the Nord Stream pipeline until further notice due to a leak, by not resuming the flow this morning, according to data from the infrastructure management company.
All nominations for each time slot this day are at zero, according to operational data collected by Swiss-based Nord Stream AG.
Gazprom, which controls the pipeline connecting Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, has thus made good its announcement on Friday that it will completely shut down gas transit through Nord Stream due to an oil leak found in a turbine during maintenance work on a compressor unit, the only one still in operation.
The Russian gas company had promised before shutting down the pipeline for three days for these tasks to resume supply to Europe early this morning at 04.00 Moscow time (01.00 GMT) at previous levels, i.e. at 20% of its capacity or 33 million cubic metres per day, something it has not done, claiming that the oil leak does not guarantee safe operation.
At the same time, he assured that the complete elimination of oil leaks in the turbines "is only possible" in a specialised workshop, referring to the German supplier Siemens.
The German company has however stressed that there are no technical reasons for shutting down the pipeline, as such leaks do not normally affect the operability of a turbine and can be sealed on site as part of a routine process.
Nor does the European Union (EU) believe the reason for the gas shutdown, describing it as a "fallacy". The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has assured that Russia's use of gas "as a weapon" will not change "the determination of the European Union (EU)", which "will accelerate its path towards energy independence".
