Latvia’s turn to see its access to Russian gas cut off. The Russian gas group Gazprom announced on Saturday July 30 that it had suspended its gas deliveries to Latvia, against a backdrop of Russian-Western tensions due to the conflict in Ukraine and unprecedented European sanctions against Russia. “Today Gazprom suspended gas deliveries to Latvia (…)due to the violation of the gas withdrawal conditions”announced the Russian company in a press release on Telegram, without giving further details.
The announcement comes as Gazprom drastically reduced deliveries of Russian gas to Europe through the Nord Stream pipeline this week, citing the need for turbine maintenance as European countries scramble to fill their reserves. for winter.
Russia had already cut its delivery volume twice in June, saying the pipeline could not function normally without a turbine, which was being repaired in Canada and had not been returned to Russia because of sanctions imposed by Westerners following the Russian assault on Ukraine. Since then, Germany and Canada have agreed to send the equipment back to Russia, but the turbine has not yet been delivered.
Westerners accuse Moscow of using the energy weapon in retaliation for the sanctions adopted after the offensive against Ukraine. The Kremlin ensures, for its part, that the sanctions are at the origin of technical problems of the gas infrastructure and that Europe therefore suffers from the measures which it imposes on Russia.
“The process of maintaining technical devices is made extremely difficult by the sanctions adopted by Europe”Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said this week, while assuring that Gazprom remained “a reliable guarantor of its obligations” and delivered “as much as necessary and as much as possible”.
A plan to prevent the risk of shortages
Russia has been hit with several rounds of Western sanctions after its military intervention in Ukraine launched on February 24. Russian gas exports to Europe, particularly to Germany and Italy, have been steadily declining since the start of these sanctions. Gazprom also interrupted its gas deliveries to several European customers who refused to pay in rubles: Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands.
The Baltic states stopped importing Russian gas on 1er April, according to Latvian storage company Conexus Baltic Grid. On Friday, the Latvian natural gas trader Latvijas Gaze announced that it had resumed its purchases of gas from Russia, without specifying its suppliers and ensuring that it paid for its deliveries in euros.
According to official data on gas flows published by the company Conexus, gas deliveries to the Latvian gas pipeline have increased sharply since July 21, before stopping abruptly on Friday July 29.
In an attempt to prevent the risk of shortages this winter, the 27 EU member countries agreed on a plan on Tuesday providing that each country “everything possible” to reduce, by March 2023, its gas consumption by at least 15% compared to the average of the last five years over the same period. Russia accounted for some 40% of EU gas imports until last year.