Swedish maritime authorities have warned of two leaks on Russia’s Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline in the territories of Sweden and Denmark.
The leak, northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, was reported after other reports of gas leaking overnight from the non-operational Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
The news comes as European and UK gas futures fell more than 4% on Tuesday morning, before Europe replenished its gas reserves by 15% on Monday.
Benchmark Dutch front-month futures fell 5% to €182 per megawatt and UK natural gas futures GWMV22;
It rose as much as 8 per cent to £260 per megawatt hour (MWh) in October.
“There are two leaks on Nord Stream 1 – one in Sweden’s economic zone and one in Denmark’s economic zone. They are very close to each other,” a spokesman for the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) told Reuters.
Another SMA spokesman said: “We will wait an extra hour to ensure that no ships come too close to the station.
In a statement posted on its website on Monday evening, Nord Stream AG said: “This evening, dispatchers at the Nord Stream 1 control center reported a pressure drop on both gas pipelines.
“The reasons are being investigated.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said it was “hard to believe that these happened by accident” and officials suspected the damage was caused.
According to a Reuters report, even Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked if the pipeline was damaged by sabotage, said “no option can be ruled out now.”
Nathan Piper, head of oil and gas research at Investec, told MarketWatts that the leak has led to a shutdown of gas going to Germany and a rise in prices.
He said: “How and why this damage happened will guarantee that Russian gas will not flow directly into Germany this winter.”
“In the near future, the impact is limited, but as the temperature decreases and the physical demand for natural gas increases, it will help to increase the price in the winter,” he said.
Delivery sprint
In early September, Russian state-owned Gazprom indefinitely halted gas flows from its pipeline to Germany, sending Dutch TTF gas futures for September into the tail at €345.52 per MWh.
EU countries have been racing to fill their gas storage capacity ahead of the winter months. About 90% of the EU’s gas reserves have been filled, according to data from Reuters, ahead of the October 1 target of 80%.
Germany, which is highly dependent on Russian gas flows, has filled its storage to 91% capacity since September 23.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank, led by chief economist Stefan Schneider, say one of the reasons for Germany’s high level of storage is that its energy savings from the industrial sector are greater than expected.
“The 10% reduction achieved in mid-July is more than we expect to be the upper limit – at least in the short term, the savings amount to about 20% per year,” he said. .
Deutsche Bank Group cites a recent BDI survey, which found that a fifth of SMEs surveyed had switched from gas to other energy sources. But more than 1/3 say that replacement is not an option in the short term.