The moment that many dreaded has arrived: the stop to supplies of Russian gas. The interruption, explains the energy giant Gazprom, is due to "maintenance work" and that the pipeline will be stopped for 10 days, from 11 July to 21 July 2022. Nord Stream Ag – the company that manages the operation, 51% owned by Gazprom – “will temporarily close both strings of the Nord Stream gas pipeline to carry out scheduled maintenance work, including testing of mechanical components and automation systems, to ensure efficient, safe and reliable pipeline,” the company said in a statement.
But after i recent supply cuts on the part of Moscow there is the fear that this time it may never reopen the taps. Perhaps shifting the blame, as he has always done, to Western sanctions that do not allow the "procurement" and "repair of components".
Gas: for the first time in history, the EU imports more from the US than from Russia
The closure of Nord Stream will impact the slowdown in Russian energy supplies. Gazprom has announced that it has reduced gas production by 8,6% in the first half of 2022 and exports to non-member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS, former Soviet republics) by 31%. "The daily average of exports in June fell by a quarter compared to last May," Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, stressed on Twitter, adding that "Russia's recent sharp cuts in natural gas to the EU make this the first month in history in which the EU has imported the most liquefied natural gas from the United States than by pipeline from Russia”. But importing LNG is more expensive and the Eurozone is already grappling with agalloping inflation. In addition, independence from Russia is still far away and "the decline in Russian supply requires efforts to reduce EU demand and prepare for a harsh winter," said Birol.
Von der Leyen on the stop to Russian gas: "EU emergency plan in mid-July"
“Russia is deliberately partially cutting off gas to Europe and we are preparing a contingency plan. A fundamental point will be solidarity", said Von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, at a press conference in Prague, adding that, "by mid-July" the contingency plan for the EU. The two pillars of the plan will be "containment" of demand and "better use of interconnections within the Union", he explained, according to which the objective "is to make gas flow where it is needed most". Then you concluded "it is time to move towards the adoption of RePowerEu".
Cingolani: "Risk of difficult winter but no restrictive measures"
If Russia were to definitively turn off the gas taps, the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani reassured: "We are the ones who suffer less from this problem, precisely because we diversified our suppliers before the others, but it is clear that we would have a difficult winteree none of us wants to take restrictive measures ”. “One thing – she added – is to say let's lower it temperature one degree warming, or say let's go ahead with coal-fired plants for a few months, because in the meantime we're saving gas temporarily, it's one thing to say we have to stop activities. We try not to do that, but I have to say we're in a pretty good position right now."
Stop Russian gas, Cingolani: "Prices will rise"
According to Cingolani, “the main objective is to guarantee gas supplies for the winter, when there is a peak in industrial and domestic consumption. With the war, in Italy we had a 15% drop in flows. It means that the risk is that there is even less gas and an additional one price increase” because “the market tends to speculate on the shortage and there will be a further race to hoard”.
“To deal with this situation – said the minister – we have first of all planned in the of bills measures to increase storage. Today we are around 60% and we have to get to 90%. This is why we have provided financial allocations to allow operators and the manager to find gas on the market and secure these supplies for the country's supply".
On drought, Cingolani: "We pay for decennial errors and shortcomings"
On drought, the minister recalled that “we pay for twenty years of infrastructure errors: lack of reservoirs, too much surface water used compared to groundwater, a fractionated management system that makes no sense. Add to all this that there has been little rain for three years, even if with a different infrastructural and management situation this emergency would have been mitigated".
But in the Pnrr “we have colossal measures, we are talking about five billion each. The lack of water – continued the Minister – also has a very heavy impact on companies that produce energy. There are hydroelectric plants that are at a standstill because the flow of rivers is not sufficient. There are thermoelectric plants that cannot be cooled. All problems are related. If we don't respect the minute the road map of the Pnrr on waste water, on desalination, on purification, on water losses we are perhaps missing the last opportunity to put a patch on it”, concluded the minister.
