The Russian gas giant. Gazprom has announced that the cut in the offer will be extended. Photo: REUTERS
A few hours before the resumption of gas supplies to Europe, Russian state-owned Gazprom announced on Friday that the Nord Stream gas pipeline will remain closed due to a turbine problem.
The pipeline, which carries the fluid to Germany, was due to reopen this weekend after three days of suspension of deliveries due to “maintenance work”. But this Friday he reported having taken over “oil leaks” in a turbine and that the supply will be “totally suspended” until its repair.
“Until the equipment malfunction is eliminated, the transit of gas through the Nord Stream pipeline is completely suspended,” Gazprom reported in its Telegram account.
According to the gas company, representatives of the Siemens company, in charge of the maintenance of the Nord Stream turbines, verified the presence of the fault.
At the same time, the Russian Federal Technical Supervision Service (Rostejnadzor) warned that the detected problem does not guarantee the safe operation of the turbine.
“In this sense, it is necessary to take the corresponding measures and suspend the activity of the Trent 60 turbine in relation to the serious violations that have been detected”, the note reads.
According to Gazprom, in the past such oil spills had been found in three other turbines.
At the same time, the complete elimination of oil leaks in these devices “only possible” in a specialized workshopadds the Russian consortium, citing Siemens.
This week, Gazprom president Alexei Miller said repairing Nord Stream turbines in a specialized factory is now impossible due to Western sanctions.
“Siemens currently has virtually no capacity to provide regular overhauls of our turbines. Siemens simply has nowhere to do this work,” Miller told Russian public television.
The Kremlin warned this Friday that the the reliability of the Nord Stream pipeline is in dangeras there are no reserve teams that can replace the off-duty ones.
“There are no technological reserves, only a turbine works. Do the calculations,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov.
Previously, Peskov said that due to Western sanctions, the pipeline’s technical equipment cannot be renewed and the turbines that have been repaired cannot be returned to Russia without guarantees that they are not subject to the sanctions regime.
Source: AFP and EFE
Source: Clarin
