European natural gas prices closed at new record highs today… and that was before news of a new gas flow halt by Gazprom was announced.
The Russia gas producer said in a statement that it will halt gas flows via Nord Stream on Aug. 31 for 3 days as the single functioning gas turbine at Portovaya’s compressor station requires planned maintenance.
“It is necessary to carry out maintenance every 1,000 hours” of operation, Gazprom said in a statement.
On a side-note, in a now-deleted tweet, Siemens Energy appeared to troll Gazprom over the ‘famous turbine’:
Siemens has just tweeted to explain:
“We’ve deleted our tweet about the turbine, which triggered a controversial discussion. We understood that tonality & topic of the tweet were considered inappropriate. This was never our intention and we apologize. We condemned the war in Ukraine from day one & continue to do so.”
One has to wonder at the timing of the sudden maintenance decision right after this tweet.
On an oil barrel equivalent basis, EU Nattie uis now trading at triple the US equivalent (which is also at its highest since 2008)
Upon work completion and absence of technical malfunctions of the turbine, gas flows will be restored to 33mcm/day.
As a reminder, flows are already at just 40% of capacity…
Finally, we note that this decision comes after news that Putin will attend the G-20 meeting (much to Washington’s chagrin)… flex much?