Russian government-controlled Gazprom has decreased transit gas deliveries across Poland and Ukraine, confirming industry experts’ worst fears and raising new concerns that the company has no intention of boosting supply to Europe as winter is nearing, Upstream Online reports.
According to German operator Gascade, hourly supplies of Russian gas over the Yamal Pipeline on October 1 went down sevenfold than in September.
On September 28, gas deliveries via this pipeline to Germany began to drop, reversing a trend that began on September 7.
The slowing of Russian gas deliveries, which Gazprom blamed on a huge fire that destroyed a gas and condensate processing complex in West Siberia, had managed to bring European spot gas prices back down from record levels of $1000 per thousand cubic meters.
According to Gascade, supplies through the Yamal Pipeline topped in September at 76 million cubic meters daily, or 3.17 million cubic meters hourly, before dropping to barely 482,000 cubic meters per hour in the early hours of October.
After deleting hourly numbers for timeframes after 6 a.m. on October 1, the operator, which is controlled by Germany’s Basf and Russia’s Gazprom, ceased updating its network information without giving a reason.
Shipments over the Yamal Pipeline have been curtailed, according to Gazprom, due to “lower bids of one of its [European] consumers.”
