Russia’s Yamal-Europe gas pipeline flows east as Ukraine crisis escalates

6:52 am Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022

By Katya Golubkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Natural gas flowed east in reverse mode through the Yamal-Europe pipeline on Tuesday, while President Vladimir Putin pledged Russia would continue to deliver uninterrupted supplies to world markets amid an escalating crisis in Ukraine.

The pipeline between Poland and Germany usually accounts for about 15% of Russia’s westbound supply of gas to Europe and Turkey but since December has been operating in reverse, driving European gas price rises [NG/GB].

Putin said that Russia would continue to supply gas to world markets as the United States and its European allies were poised to announce fresh sanctions against Moscow after it recognised two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

Flows through the Yamal-Europe pipeline were flat on Tuesday while continuing to move in reverse mode for a tenth week, data from German network operator Gascade showed.

Flows from Germany to Poland via the Mallnow metering point stood at about 1.5 million kilowatt hours per hour (kWh/h) on Tuesday, virtually unchanged from Monday and the weekend.

Renominations, or bids, to flow gas from Germany to Poland are also expected at about 1.5 million kWh/h until Wednesday.

Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom, which can book pipeline capacity at daily auctions, had not ordered any transit capacity for February and March via the route.

It did not book capacity for the second and third quarters of the year and has no plans to hold spot gas sales at its electronic platform this week.

On another major route for Russian deliveries to Europe, for supply to Slovakia from Ukraine via the Velke Kapusany border point, capacity nominations for Tuesday stood at 258,832 MWh.

While that was around levels seen in the past week, it was less than half of the flows recorded earlier in February.

Nominations via this route hit a 2022 high of 850,143 MWh at the start of February.

(Reporting by Katya Golubkova; Additional reporting by Robert Muller; Editing by Alexander Smith)