Eni, an Italian energy company, reported on Monday that Gazprom was cutting the supply of gas even further. This came as the Russian energy giant began doing standard maintenance on its Nord Stream 1 pipeline for the next ten days.
“Gazprom announced that today it will send amounts of gas to Eni for roughly 21 million cubic meters/day,” Eni said in a statement. This is significantly less than the average for the past several days, which was approximately 32 million cubic meters/day.
The Trans Austria Gas Pipeline (TAG), which is owned and operated by Gazprom, is responsible for transporting some of the company’s gas supplies to Italy. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, however, is responsible for transporting other portions of these supplies.
The invasion of Ukraine has brought relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point in years, and the fear is that Gazprom may seize this opportunity to simply refuse to reopen the valves. Relations between Russia and the West are at their lowest point in years because of the invasion of Ukraine.
The European Union (EU) countries, and Germany in particular, would be severely impacted by a prolonged shutdown of the pipeline, which would aggravate an existing energy crisis in which unpredictable supplies have driven up prices in advance of winter in Europe.