"Gazprom" joined Norway: there is less gas for Europe

Following Norway, preventive repairs affecting exports to Europe were started in Bulgaria, which directly affects the supplies of "Gazprom" to Europe. The capacity of the "Turkish Stream" gas transmission point on the border of Turkey and Bulgaria has been reduced. As in The North Sea, the work is traditional and planned, but this year it was very inappropriate.

According to ENTSOG, the platform of the GTS operators of the EU countries, gas supplies via the European line of the "Turkish Stream" dropped sharply on September 21 — to 11.6 million cubic meters. Further, they may drop even lower, as preventive maintenance has begun on the route — the only remaining and operating route of Russian gas to Europe.

"In the period from September 21 to September 25 (inclusive), the capacity at the "Strandzha-2" point will be limited to 46% of the maximum", said Tom-Marzek Manser from Wood Mackenzie in X.

His information is confirmed by the Bulgarian operator "Bulgartransgaz". The company indicates that from September 21 to 26 it is carrying out the reconstruction of the pipeline section at the "Strandzha-2" point. Through it, Russian gas enters Bulgaria, and then is transported to Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia and Romania, from where it already falls into Hungary, and Slovakia.

Over the past few years, for the first time in Bulgaria, such work has been carried out in isolation from preventive maintenance on the "Turkish Stream", which took place in June.

Earlier in September, repairs were carried out at a point on the border of Serbia and Hungary, and deliveries via the "Turkish Stream" were also declining.

According to ENTSOG, this September the average daily deliveries via the European line of the "Turkish Stream" amount to 47.4 million cubic meters per day. A year ago they were at the level of 51.2 million cubic meters.

An even greater decrease in supplies occurs in Norway, which is capable of supplying 330-340 million cubic meters per day. Due to preventive maintenance, exports in September fell to an average of 281 million cubic meters. This is less than it was reduced last year, but not enough for Europe's main supplier to cover the decline in LNG imports to Europe — 342 million cubic meters per day instead of 372 million.

Meanwhile, gas is pumped into storage facilities The EU in September was higher than a year earlier — 251 million cubic meters per day. But this is due to lower consumption and accelerated compensation of failure in spring and summer. At the same time, the difference of 24 million cubic meters per day is still not enough to significantly reduce the gap of 13.2 billion cubic meters that had developed by September 21 between the current reserves and the filling of storage facilities last year.

The storages of the EU countries are 70% full. They contain 75.3 billion cubic meters. And until November, obviously, the reserves will be able to reach 80 billion cubic meters. In general, this will be enough for the heating season, but it may not be enough for individual countries. Just this week, Germany was able to accumulate slightly more reserves than it burned last winter — 13.4 billion cubic meters. And there are risks of failures in the country despite the fact that gas prices on European stock exchanges have been above $ 900 per thousand cubic meters for three weeks — the highest since the peak of the energy crisis in 2022.