Ukraine wants to shut down Nord Stream 1 to be financed by German gas …
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Ukraine is working behind the scenes to persuade Western allies to transfer Russian natural gas shipments from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to the Ukrainian pipeline, increasing Kiev's leverage in its conflict with Russia, energy officials told Reuters . .
Doing so, they argued, would force Russia to move more of its gas bound for Europe via Ukraine. This would make Moscow pay more transit taxes that could help defend Ukraine in wartime and dissuade Russia from damaging Ukrainian gas pipelines, according to leaks from US-Ukraine talks.
As you can see, Germany gets gas from Russia through Nord Stream 1, Yamal (Poland and Belarus) and Ukraine. If Nord Stream 1, which is now working at full capacity, were shut down, more gas would pass through Ukraine and Gazprom would have to pay more transit fees.
Representatives of the Ukrainian pipeline operator and gas company Naftogaz spent a week in Washington meeting administration officials and congressional lawmakers to urge them to persuade Germany and other European allies to adopt the plan.
Russia “depends on us transporting gas from Russia to Europe. This is something we can leverage in our discussions with them and Europe can help, ”said Olga Bielkova, director of international affairs for Ukraine's Gas Transit System Operator, in an interview with Washington.
A White House official and the German Ministry of Economy declined to comment. On Wednesday, Germany said it would stop importing oil by the end of this year "and then gas will follow," but did not specify when.
Germany has already stopped Russian gas project Nord Stream 2, designed to double gas shipments to Germany, in retaliation for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. The $ 11 billion project finished construction late last year, but it never started.
In this way "nothing is done to increase security of supply in Europe," said David Goldwyn, a former special envoy of the State Department, rather it makes it fragile and dependent on the military situation on the ground.
The move could also raise some legal dangers. Christian Egenhofer of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies said EU action against Russian imports could represent an illegal violation of supply contracts.
Russia currently moves 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to Germany on Nord Stream 1. It moves another 40 billion cubic meters to Europe through Ukraine's gas transportation system and pays transit taxes in Ukraine in US dollars.
The Ukrainian pipeline system has a spare capacity of more than 100 billion cubic meters and could easily absorb the flow of Nord Stream 1.
Daniel Vajdich, an adviser to Naftogaz, said that moving all of Nord Stream 1 into the Ukrainian system "would provide Kiev with greater influence over Moscow and show the Kremlin that Europe is tying its security to that of Ukraine" .
Officials have proposed to immediately redirect 40% of Nord Stream 1's capacity to the Ukrainian pipeline, gradually increasing to 100% by April 2023. This would give EU states time to build up winter supplies and diversify. Furthermore, Ukraine could easily accumulate gas in the summer months for next winter.
In any case, Germany is back at the center of European energy problems, for a change, a real Achilles heel of any European energy policy.
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The article Ukraine wants to shut down Nord Stream 1 to be financed by German gas… comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/lucraina-vuol-far-chiudere-nord-stream-1-per-farsi-finanziare-dal-gas-tedesco/ on Thu, 21 Apr 2022 10:00:55 +0000.