France No Longer Receives Russian Gas Via Germany

Russian gas no longer flows through the pipeline that connects the gas network from France to Germany. The French operator of the gas network, GRTGaz, reports that the supply of gas via that node has been stopped since Wednesday.

 

The notification comes on the same day that the Russian state gas group Gazprom informed the Italian energy group Eni that it could only supply half of the requested amount of gas. The gas supply to Slovakia from Russia has also been halved, the Slovakian gas importer SPP reported.

According to GRTGaz, the energy supply to French customers is not at risk. The filling of the gas storage facilities for the winter will also continue. That operation is on schedule, as the storage is 56 percent full, while it is normally 50 percent around this time of year.

The connection between Germany and France has generally accounted for the majority of France’s gas imports. But that has changed since the beginning of this year and the node is only operating at 10 percent of its capacity.

France is dependent on Russia for about 17 percent of its gas. To become less dependent on the country, it is now importing more gas from neighbouring Spain.

Gazprom also significantly reduced gas exports to Germany and Austria this week. The group referred to technical problems due to the lack of parts, but Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi called that lies. He accuses Russia of using gas as a weapon against Western countries that have imposed sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Russia has already terminated the supply of gas to the Netherlands, Poland, Bulgaria, Denmark and Finland. Gas importers in those countries did not want to pay in rubles, as Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded.