The major Nord Stream gas pipeline system that carries Russian gas to Germany will shut for nine days of maintenance from Tuesday as planned, a spokeswoman for the pipeline said Monday.
The 55 Bcm/year twin pipeline system will be shut down until August 17 while the maintenance work -- to include annual maintenance of mechanical components as well as testing of the automation system -- is carried out.
"The temporary interruption of supplies has been factored into the nominations of gas planned for Nord Stream to transport to downstream European partners," the pipeline operator said.
According to data from Platts Analytics' Eclipse Energy, daily flows into Germany via Velke Kapusany in Slovakia have already stepped up ahead of the Nord Stream maintenance period, peaking at 146 million cu m August 5.
That is the highest daily flow level via that route since July 30 last year, which also came ahead of maintenance work being carried out on Nord Stream.
The 2015 Nord Stream maintenance period lasted from August 11 through August 20.
Injections into the 4 Bcm Rehden gas storage facility in Germany -- where Gazprom has capacity -- have also stepped up ahead of the Nord Stream maintenance.
In the past week, injections have average 22 million cu m/d compared with an average over the past 60 days of 12 million cu m/d.
This would give Gazprom the flexibility to supply customers in Europe while Nord Stream is out of action.
The twin Nord Stream pipeline had been sending an average of around 117 million cu m/d to Europe over the past two months.
Nord Stream has said the maintenance work is part of its long-term pipeline integrity management strategy "to ensure that the pipelines will be able to continue transporting up to 55 Bcm/year of gas per year safely and efficiently for at least 50 years."
Gazprom is also moving forward with plans to build a second Nord Stream pipeline system with the same capacity as the first to double the total capacity of the network to 110 Bcm/year.
