Tuesday, November 9th, 2021
Putin promised an increase
Russia is only supplying a little more gas for the time being
Critics accuse Russia of artificially reducing its gas supply in Europe in order to force the use of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline. President Putin promised additional deliveries two weeks ago. However, they are smaller than expected.
Europeans have been hoping for additional gas supplies from Russia since the beginning of the week. About two weeks ago, President Vladimir Putin promised that the state-owned company Gazprom would increase its deliveries to the West from November 8th. Two of the three important gas pipelines to Germany actually recorded slightly higher delivery volumes today, reports the “Spiegel” after it had compared the data.
According to this, a total of six million cubic meters of natural gas from Siberia had arrived in the Yamal pipeline in Mallnow, a town in Brandenburg near the Polish border. According to “Spiegel”, this is evident from data from the network operator Gascade. In the past few days, however, no deliveries have been recorded there. Gas flows from the Transgas pipeline in Waidhaus, a place at the border crossing from Bavaria to the Czech Republic, have also increased by around ten million cubic meters.
However, the German population consumes an average of 300 million cubic meters of natural gas on a single November day. Experts therefore criticize that the additional delivery is too small. “Instead of the previous 256 million a day, Gazprom is now delivering around 272 million cubic meters through the three largest pipelines to Germany. That is a step – but a small one,” said Tom Marzec-Manser, chief gas strategist at the London analysis company ISIC, the magazine. In addition, it is unclear whether Gazprom will deliver the same amount in the coming days, increase it or reduce it again. “We should now see at least a week of constant flows at this level or a higher level,” says Marzec-Manser. Then at the earliest, confidence will regain confidence in the European wholesale markets.
Russian deliveries for Yamal and Transgas already fell drastically at the beginning of October. At the same time, energy prices in Europe are rising constantly. Critics accuse the Kremlin and its state-owned company of deliberately reducing gas supplies in order to force the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to go into operation. Gazprom fulfills its contractual obligations towards the European states, but only delivers the minimum. The storage facilities at Yamal and Transgas were filled with significantly more gas in the same period of the past few years, according to “Spiegel”.