Russian Gas Flows to Germany Rise Despite Belarus Threat
MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russian gas flows through a key pipeline to Germany rose on Monday with no sign that Belarus's president had acted on his threat to cut off supplies to the European Union as winter approaches.
Targeting gas supplies that heat millions of homes across Europe, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko last week warned he could retaliate against any new EU sanctions over a migrant standoff on the Belarus-EU border by shutting the Yamal-Europe pipeline that crosses his country.
Russia is a major exporter of natural gas to Europe via Belarus and the Kremlin has made it clear it does not want to see any disruption in supplies.
European spot gas prices were up by 6.27% on Monday to 79.70 euros per megawatt hour by 1146 GMT, as market remains tight this year because of factors including low inventories and increased demand after the easing of COVID-19 lockdowns.
Until recently, the lack of additional flows from Moscow - which was only delivering on its contractual volumes - was a major factor behind the surging gas prices, and the market is closely following any potential Russian flow disruptions.
Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom started refilling its European storage facilities last week, with flows coming mainly via Belarus and Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that a move to block gas flows to Germany would risk harming ties between Minsk and its key ally Moscow, adding that he would speak to Lukashenko on the issue.
Flows into Germany at the Mallnow metering point, which lies on the Polish border, were up to an hourly volume of over 12,454,248 kilowatt hours (kWh) on Monday, data from German network operator Gascade showed, up from weekend volumes.
The gas transportation infrastructure in Belarus is owned by Gazprom.
On Monday, monthly auction results showed Gazprom had not booked any additional gas transit capacity via Ukraine and via the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe pipeline for December.
While largely ignoring monthly auctions, Gazprom books transit capacity at daily auctions from time to time when it sees additional requests from its customers.
Russia has said more gas could flow to Europe once its newly built Nord Stream 2 pipeline gets a green light from Germany to operate.
Nord Stream 2 is designed to bypass transit countries, particularly Ukraine which has a history of gas pricing standoffs with Moscow.
The Kremlin said on Monday that a threat by Lukashenko to cut gas supplies would not result in Russia redirecting flows away from Belarus into the Nord Stream 2 once it is put into operation.
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