MOSCOW: The Yamal-Europe pipeline, which usually transports Russian gas into Europe, has shifted into reverse over the past week, triggering a row between Moscow and its western neighbours.
Instead of flowing into European markets, that are going through a winter heating disaster on account of sky-high worths, gas has been flowing east into Poland and Ukraine, in a growth that Russia blames on hypothesis by German corporations.
The following is a proof of how the pipeline works.
VITAL STATISTICS
The Yamal-Europe pipeline https://www.gazprom.com/tasks/yamal-europe is greater than 2,000 kilometres (1,243 miles) lengthy and brings gas from the gas-rich Yamal area in the Russian Arctic.
It passes by means of the town of Smolensk in western Russia, runs on by means of Minsk in Belarus after which travels throughout Poland earlier than terminating on the Mallnow compressor station close to Frankfurt an der Oder close to the German-Polish border.
Construction of the pipeline started in 1994 and it reached annual designed capability in 2006 of just about 33 billion cubic metres, or round one-sixth of Russian gas exports to Europe.
WHO OWNS IT?
The pipeline’s portion in Poland is owned by EuRoPol Gaz, a three way partnership of Russian power big Gazprom and Poland’s PGNiG.
The German part of the gas pipeline is owned by WINGAS, a three way partnership between Gazprom and oil and gas firm Wintershall DEA. Wintershall, in flip, is co-owned by German chemical compounds group BASF and Russia’s LetterOne.
POLISH CONTRACT
A protracted-term gas transit contract between Russia and Poland expired in mid-May 2020. Since then, Gazprom has booked short-term transit capability by means of the pipeline by way of auctions.
It has not booked capability at each day actions since Dec. 19, when the pipeline has been working in reverse mode.
During the latest reversal, firms with provide offers have stated their contracts have been met.
IN REVERSE
The pipeline generally switches into reverse, when gas flows from Germany to Poland, which occurred in October too.
This reverse mode means there aren’t any requests for gas in direction of Germany, which additionally receives Russian gas by way of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on the mattress of the Baltic Sea.
TRANSIT FEES
Russian oil and gas big Gazprom ships gas to Germany at cheaper worths than to Poland to offset increased the transit charges concerned in piping it for an extended distance.
However, this complicates gas gross sales because the European Union has allowed re-exports of gas which had been beforehand banned by Gazprom. Gazprom agreed to drop https://ec.europa.eu/fee/presscorner/element/en/IP_17_555 the re-export clause in 2017 as a part of an antimonopoly probe into its practices in Europe.
This successfully permits gas purchased at a reduction from Russia in Germany to be offered to patrons different international locations at a revenue.
In the previous, Moscow repeatedly accused Ukraine of holding onto gas sure for Europe as a substitute of permitting it to circulation on, interrupting Russian exports, notably in winter 2008-2009.
Ukraine denied any wrongdoing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated final week that Germany was reselling Russian gas to Poland and Ukraine slightly than relieving an overheated marketplace for the gasoline.
Germany’s financial system ministry declined to remark.- Reuters
