Russia continues to threaten Europe in a difficult winter, against the background of the support for Ukraine and sanctions imposed on Moscow. The CEO of Gazprom, which until recently was the largest supplier of natural gas to the European Union, said in Moscow that “entire cities may freeze” if the coming winter in Europe is severe. of more than 90%, among other things by increased procurement during the summer from Russia – which has now almost stopped.
“Winter can be relatively warm, but one week or even five days of unusually cold weather, and entire cities or entire regions may freeze, God forbid,” said Alexei Miller, who heads the Russian government company. He did not specify the sources of his estimate, but said that even with full reserves, Europe may face a shortage of 800 million cubic meters of gas per day this coming winter, about a third of its consumption on particularly cold days. He noted that in previous winters, Gazprom supplied the continent with between 600 million and 1.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Miller estimated that if the optimistic forecasts about the weather this coming winter, Europe will be able to survive the winter, but that the critical point will be next year, then Europe will have to fill the reserves again. “Europe will survive, but what will happen in the next phase that will require gas injection, before the winter of 2023-2024?”, he wondered. “Then it will be clear that the energy crisis is not a passing phenomenon.” According to him, Europe will be left with gas reserves of only 5% of the capacity as early as March this year.
Unlike oil: there is still no European embargo on the purchase of Russian gas
Currently, Russian gas still flows to Europe in small quantities, through two secondary pipelines, while the “Nord-Stream 1” pipeline, which transported up to 60 billion cubic meters last year, is disabled due to the significant explosions and leaks that occurred in it. Despite this, there is no European embargo on the purchase of Russian gas, like the one planned on the purchase of crude oil (from which some countries in Central Europe are excluded). Greece, for example, is preparing to import liquefied Russian gas in the coming months to help it lower high energy prices.
Gazprom CEO Miller said these things during the “Energy Week” that opened in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the discussions that Russia is “still open” to supplying gas to European countries through the “Nord-Stream 2” pipeline, which he says can be partially used despite The explosions that happened there last month.
“The ball is in the European court. If they want, we can just open the tap,” said Putin, “we are ready to supply additional quantities during the current fall-winter.” He estimated that the pipeline, which consists of two separate pipelines, was damaged in only one of them, while the other “can be repaired”, and through it, approximately 27 billion cubic meters of natural gas can be flowed per year. Unlike “Nord-Stream 1”, the “Nord-Stream 2” pipeline did not receive operating approval from the German authorities due to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
Putin again accused the US of sabotaging the pipeline, and the Russian Foreign Ministry invited the ambassadors of Denmark and Sweden to a reprimanding conversation following the fact that they do not allow Russian teams to participate in the investigation of the incident.