Russian state energy company Gazprom has announced that due to Western sanctions, it will be impossible to repatriate a repaired gas turbine required to restore full flows on the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
According to Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch, the German company has fulfilled every requirement to return the turbine to Russia. Bruch said that his company is “extremely interested” in seeing the turbine returned and gas flows restored, and that any shortcoming is due to actions of the Russian company.
On Wednesday, Gazprom said, “The sanctions regimes of Canada, the EU, the UK and the inconsistency of the current situation with the current contractual obligations on the part of Siemens make the delivery of the 073 engine to the Portovaya [compressor station] impossible.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on a visit to the Siemens plant in Mülheim an der Ruhr Tuesday, inspected the turbine, and said it is ready for operation and could immediately be sent to Russia.
Previously the turbine, which had been sent to Canada for repairs by Siemens, had been trapped in Canada when the Canadian government announced it would not return the turbine for fear of violating Western sanctions on Russia imposed due to the war in Ukraine. In mid-June, Russia restricted flows via the pipeline to 40% of normal capacity, announcing that without the turbine, it could no longer safely maintain proper pressures in the pipeline.
After Berlin’s insistence, due to the importance of the gas deliveries to replenish the reserves Germany will need to heat German homes and fuel German industry in the winter, Canada relented, and announced it would release the turbine to Siemens in Germany, who could return it to Russia. On July 25th, Gazprom stated it had received the necessary paperwork from Siemens in Germany.
On July 27th, following a ten day shutdown for planned repairs and maintenance, Russia reduced flows to Germany again, to only 20% of maximum capacity, due to Gazprom having to remove another turbine for maintenance from the Portovaya compressor station.
Vitaly Markelov, deputy head of Gazprom said that the issue regarding the pipeline’s flow restrictions is more complex, and that Siemens has failed to repair several faulty engines at the compressor station used to pump gas through the pipeline.
Markelov further stated that according to the service contract, the turbine needed to be delivered directly to Russia from Canada for security reasons, and that by delivering it to Germany, it violated the service contract. In addition, he said the paperwork received from Siemens was incomplete, and was not sufficient for the turbine’s safe and secure return and installation.
This creates a particular problem for Europe, which depends on Russian gas deliveries during the summer to top off reserve supplies that will be drawn down during winter to heat homes, fuel electricity generation, and supply various manufacturing processes. Without sufficient reserves, Europe faces the prospect of rationing, production contractions, economic contractions, and the inability to heat resident’s homes.
Some of the shortfall can be made up with liquid natural gas deliveries, however the second biggest LNG export facility in the United States is still shut down due to an explosion and fire which damaged it earlier this year, and as a result, there will need to be some rationing.
Already Germany has begun to make plans to create heated shelters for residents to move to in the event there is not enough gas to supply to homes for heating, and they have restarted shuttered coal-burning electricity plants, to allow more gas flows to be diverted to replenishing reserves.
