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Tuesday, a vital pipeline transporting natural gas from Russia to Europe abruptly altered its flow direction.
On Tuesday morning, data from the European firm Gascade revealed that flows in the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which transports natural gas from Russia to Germany via Poland, were recorded moving eastward away from Europe. At one point along the pipeline, flow rates were as high as 4.3 million kilowatt-hours per hour.
The pipeline is one of three routes used by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom to deliver natural gas to Western Europe. The Yamal-Europe pipeline is responsible for 10% of the natural gas supplies in the region. A significant shift in the flow of energy could result in considerably higher energy prices for European consumers.
Russia is responsible for approximately 47% of European gas imports, according to the most recent Eurostat data.
“If Russia stops the gas supply to Europe, it could have a seismic impact on European energy,” International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol said last month. “Russia has to consider the consequences if existing oil and gas supplies to Europe are halted.”
In light of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the European Union has pledged to cut Russian natural gas imports by more than 65 percent by 2023. The German government has also put on hold its study of the finished Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will run beneath the Baltic Sea and connect Russia to Europe.
According to top US diplomat Amos Hochstein, Russia has already showed symptoms of leveraging Western dependency on its energy for geopolitical reasons and even as a weapon.
“I think we are getting close to that line if Russia indeed has the gas to supply and it chooses not to, and it will only do so if Europe accedes to other demands that are completely unrelated,” Hochstein said at the time.
“There is no doubt in my mind, and the IEA has itself validated, that the only supplier that can really make a big difference for European energy security at the moment for this winter is Russia,” he added.
On March 8, President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would immediately ban the import of all Russian oil and petroleum products, a significant portion of the nation’s total imports and supply.
