The Facts
- Hours after G-7 countries agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil, the Russian energy giant Gazprom extended the shutdown of gas flows through Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany on Friday. The state-owned oil and gas company said supplies would remain halted indefinitely after a leak was detected at its Portovaya compressor station.
- Gazprom stopped gas flows on Wed. for a maintenance window but had been set to resume on Saturday.
- Gazprom said it would ship 42.7M cubic meters of natural gas to Europe through Ukraine on Saturday. Accordingly, flows via the Sudzha entry point were up slightly although not enough to offset the disruption to Nord Stream 1.
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The Spin
Anti-Russia narrative
Russia is using its gas supplies to try to create an economic crisis on the continent, as it looks to hit back against Western sanctions. It's clear that Moscow is using natural gas as a weapon of war, and Europe must prepare for the worst-case scenario of a complete interruption of supplies.
Pro-Russia narrative
Gazprom is committed to meeting its gas export contracts, but Western financial sanctions have seriously diminished the pipeline's capacity and posed challenges to maintenance, meaning Gazprom simply can't fulfill them as it usually would.
Metaculus Prediction
There is a 20% chance that there will be a large-scale power outage in the continental Europe synchronous grid before 2023, according to the Metaculus Prediction Community.