UPDATE: Nord Stream pipeline starts gas supplies after maintenance

(Rewrites story)

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, Jul 21 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipeline has started gas supplies at 07:00 a.m. Moscow time on Thursday after 10-day planned maintenance, according to information of the facility’s operator Nord Stream AG and gas transportation operators OPAL and NEL.

Nord Stream AG also said that the physical flow amounted to almost 1.8 million cubic meters of gas from 7:00 through 8:00 a.m. Moscow time.

European consumers booked around 63.9 million cubic meters of gas in the gas day, or 2.66 million cubic meters per hour, the operator also said, adding that the level of 2.66 million cubic meters of gas per hour will be reached in several hours.

Russian gas giant Gazprom told Italy’s energy company Eni that it will increase the supplies to 36 million cubic meters of gas from 21 million cubic meters from Thursday, Eni said in a statement.

As seen by PRIME in the data of the ICE commodity exchange in London, gas prices in Europe have decreased by around 3% to below U.S. $1,550 per 1,000 cubic meters after the launch of the Nord Stream pipeline.

U.S. State Department spokesman Edward (Ned) Price said late on Wednesday that the U.S. hoped that the facility would resume operations as is it a factor of Europe’s energy security in the short term.

Director of Germany’s Federal Network Agency Klaus Mueller said in his Twitter account that Russia’s gas supplies via the Nord Stream pipeline will amount to 30% of the facility’s throughput capacity on Thursday.

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