France accused Moscow on Tuesday of using energy supplies as “a weapon of war” after Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP.MM) cut deliveries to a major French customer and said it would shut its main gas pipeline to Germany for three days this week.
European governments are trying to coordinate a response to soaring energy costs for businesses and households and to fill storage facilities ahead of peak demand in the winter.
Western nations fear that Moscow is deliberately driving up gas prices to try to weaken their opposition to its invasion of Ukraine, a tactic Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday dubbed “economic terrorism”. Moscow denies the charge.
Nord Stream 1, the main conduit for Russian gas into Europe, has become a flash point in the dispute.
Europe faces a further squeeze on supplies this week as Gazprom shuts off the pipeline for maintenance from Wednesday till the early hours of Saturday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday technological problems caused by Western sanctions on Russia are the only thing standing in the way of supplying gas via Nord Stream 1.
But France’s Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said: “Very clearly Russia is using gas as a weapon of war and we must prepare for the worst case scenario of a complete interruption of supplies.”
She was speaking to France Inter radio after French utility Engie (ENGIE.PA) said it would receive less gas from Gazprom from Tuesday because of an unspecified contractual dispute.
Russia has been pumping gas via Nord Stream 1 at only 20% of capacity and there are fears that this week’s outage could be extended.
Asked if there are guarantees that Gazprom will restart gas flows via Nord Stream 1, the Kremlin’s Peskov said: “There are guarantees that, apart from technological problems caused by sanctions, nothing hinders the supplies.”
Source: reuters.com