Iran Energy News Oil, Gas, Petrochemical and Energy Field Specialized Channel
Related Articles
Maintenance on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline may well persist beyond its scheduled end-date next week but will likely resume operations by the end of next month, analysts said on Wednesday.
The key gas conduit – between Russia and Germany – began 10 days of annual maintenance on Monday, but it is widely anticipated not to return after this period.
Lauren Broadfield, analyst with Energy Aspects said there was likely to be an extended outage, but that flows could resume from the end of August.
“We expect flows to ramp up again in September, before reaching 125mcm/day in October,” she said, noting production from certain deposits would need to increase before winter, if Russia wanted to retain “adequate flexibility” in its domestic balance.
Prior to the current outage, Gazprom had already reduced flows to some 40% of capacity – or around 65mcm/day – citing maintenance issues relating to the delayed delivery of a turbine from Canada, due to its sanctions on Russia.
The Canadian government this week agreed a temporary exemption of Russian sanctions allowing the return of parts required to recommence export operations, alleviating some tension in the market.
But Gazprom said late on Wednesday it had not received official notification that Canada would return the turbine.
Broadfield said Russia was still seeking to stymie Europe’s ability to reach adequate stocks by the end of October, in order to “generate political fallout” from high prices and boost Europe’s energy dependence on Russia over the winter.
Market disruption
Jason Durden, head of energy markets and risk management at consultancy Alfa Energy, said there was little reason for Gazprom to delay the resumption of flows.
But he noted the firm would still likely attempt to disrupt the market “as much as they can”, in retaliation for Western sanctions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The options that are open to them are multiple,” he said, adding “assuming there is no delay [in obtaining parts] Gazprom is just as likely to restart and flood the market, before later shutting it back down again, as they are to just leave the pipe completely dormant.”
“They could maximise disruptive impact if they were to vary supply.”
In the meantime, Europe was “on edge” and “counting down the days” until Nord Stream 1 was scheduled to return, said Rystad Energy analyst Nikoline Bromander.
“The resumption will depend on Canadian turbines from Siemens making it to Russia,” she said.
