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BERLIN — Natural gas started flowing through a major pipeline from Russia to Europe on Thursday after a 10-day shutdown for maintenance, the operator said.
But the gas flow was expected to fall well short of full capacity and the outlook was uncertain — which leaves Europe still facing the prospect of a hard winter.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline under the Baltic Sea to Germany had been closed since July 11 for annual maintenance work. Amid growing tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine, German officials had feared that the pipeline—the country’s main source of Russian gas, which recently has accounted for around a third of Germany’s gas supplies—might not reopen at all.
Operator Nord Stream AG said that gas started flowing again Thursday morning, and its network data showed gas beginning to arrive after the scheduled end of maintenance at 6 a.m.
Deliveries were expected to fall far below the pipeline’s full capacity, as they did for weeks before the maintenance break.
The head of Germany’s network regulator, Klaus Mueller, said Russia’s Gazprom had notified deliveries Thursday of only about 30% of the pipeline’s capacity. He later tweeted that actual deliveries were above that amount and could reach the pre-maintenance level of some 40%.
That wouldn’t be enough to resolve Europe’s energy crisis. “The political uncertainty and the 60% reduction from mid-June unfortunately remain,” Mueller wrote.
When Gazprom reduced the flow last month, it cited alleged technical problems involving equipment that partner Siemens Energy sent to Canada for overhaul and couldn’t be returned because of sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Read more: Where Russia’s War in Ukraine Stands—And…
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Source : time
