Information has been spreading like wildfire for several weeks. In France, it is the famous Mac Lesggy, the presenter of the program E=M6 who transmits it through a tweet.
“Russia is currently burning in the open air, in Yamal, the fossil gas that it no longer delivers to Germany, releasing 9,000t of CO2 per day into the atmosphere.” Worse still, this burning would produce soot particles that, with the wind, settle on snow and ice and accelerate their melting.
explanations. Since Gazprom decided to drastically reduce its gas deliveries to Germany, it would not have the technical capacity to store the precious fuel or sell it elsewhere.
Various outlets have investigated these allegations, notably the very serious BBC, as reported by CheckNews. In a recent survey, the British public broadcaster estimated almost 4.34 million cubic meters of natural gas, the volume of gas that is flared each day near the Russian border with Finland.
This practice called “flaring” would generate around 9,000 tons of CO2 equivalent per day according to Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy specializing in oil and gas energy cited by British media.
A flame visible from Finland
A practice that is also visible to the naked eye as a large flame is visible from Portovaya where there is a compressor station at the start of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that carries gas under the sea to Germany. This flame visible from Finland was also filmed by the country’s public television. YLE.
In Germany, obviously, there are doubts about this “flaring” when Gazprom only delivers 20% of the gas capacity through NordStream. For the German ambassador to the United Kingdom interviewed by the BBC, there is no doubt: Gazprom has “no other places to sell its gas, so they have to burn it.”
Same conclusion for Welt dies. the german newspaper he writes: “the undelivered quantities (to Germany, editor’s note) apparently cannot be resold in their entirety to other customers, but must be burned.”
Parts problem?
On the Gazprom side, it’s radio silence. But some experts are proposing other possible explanations for this big mess. It could be a parts or equipment issue, such as a lack of high-quality valves for Gazprom affected by a European embargo and therefore unable to replace these items.
In addition, this Friday, Gazprom announced that the gas pipeline north streamvital for deliveries in Europe, it will be “completely” stopped until a turbine is repaired, when it was due to resume service on Saturday after a maintenance operation.
Source: BFM TV
