Gazprom announces Nord Stream 1 pipeline suspended indefinitely
The Russian energy giant Gazprom has announced that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 will not restart on schedule on Saturday, citing damage to the turbine engine.
In a statement, the company did not give a time frame for restarting the pipeline, claiming it detected an oil leak at the main gas turbine at Portovaya compressor station near St Petersburg.
It said the turbine could not operate safely until the leak was repaired.
Key events
Filters BETA
Grossi says the team will produce a report early next week of their findings.
Grossi describes the situation as “extremely complex and challenging” which needs the permanent support of the IAEA.
Grossi, whose team landed back in Vienna a few minutes ago, said there are no major problems logistically and a “mixed bag” with the systems.
On the outside power supply, Grossi says on several occasions there were blackouts and interruptions of the supply to the outside.
On the safety and security systems, Grossi says it is not fully functioning but not in the critical red zone.
Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says they saw miulitary activity around the plant and markings on buildings so the “physical integirty of the facilities has been violated several times” which he brands unacceptable.
Grossi, who completed a first tour of the key areas of the Russian-occupied power plant, begins by saying six of the experts remain at the site to continue with the work.
The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, is due to give a press conference shortly in Vienna after returning from the Zaporizhzhia plant. We’ll be providing updates from it here.
Joe Biden will request $11.7bn (£10.2bn) in emergency funding from Congress to provide lethal aid and budget support to Ukraine, the White House has said.
The emergency funding request will also include $2bn (£1.7bn) to address the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on US energy supplies, according to Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
In a statement on Telegram, Gazprom shared what it said was a picture showing leaked oil on equipment at the compressor station.
From Reuters’ Felix Light:
Here’s more on Gazprom’s announcement that the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany will not be restarted as planned tomorrow.
The Russian state energy company said the decision to keep the Baltic Sea pipeline shut was due to an oil leak detected at the Portovaya compressor station near St Petersburg.
Gazprom has now said it needs to fix the problem before the flows can restart, with no indication of how long that may take.
Similar oil leaks have previously been detected at some other turbines, which are out of action now, and “complete elimination of oil leakage on these turbines is possible only in the conditions of a specialised repair company,” Gazprom said.
The pipeline was due to reopen on Saturday following a three-day break, after the company cited the need to carry out repairs in a move that heightened already acute nervousness over the reliability of winter energy supplies.
Nord Stream 1, which runs under the Baltic Sea to supply Germany and others, was running at 20% capacity even before flows were halted this week.
As the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour writes, the latest move is a brutal show of force by Russia and comes after G7 countries agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil earlier today.
Russia goes for the throat. Gazprom shuts down Nordstream 1 indefinitely gives no timeline by which it will be able to restart after detecting “oil leakage” during routine maintenance. Brutal show of force compared with G7’s possible future Russian oil price cap.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) September 2, 2022
Gazprom announces Nord Stream 1 pipeline suspended indefinitely
The Russian energy giant Gazprom has announced that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 will not restart on schedule on Saturday, citing damage to the turbine engine.
In a statement, the company did not give a time frame for restarting the pipeline, claiming it detected an oil leak at the main gas turbine at Portovaya compressor station near St Petersburg.
It said the turbine could not operate safely until the leak was repaired.
Dan Sabbagh
Ukraine declared this week it had begun a counteroffensive aiming to retake Kherson – the one city Russia holds west of the Dnieper river – prompting a fog of uncertainty to descend on how the effort was progressing, never mind whether it would succeed.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a key adviser to the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, stressed there would be “no quick wins” as the attack in the south began – a point reflected in a briefing on Friday by western officials.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said Ukraine had “pushed back” the Russian defenders in “several places”, but insisted it was too soon to name villages taken or distances gained while fighting was ongoing.
The caution may be realistic, but it is also telling. This is not, in any sense, a blitzkrieg or a broad front attack, but rather a localised effort to strike at the most obvious strategic vulnerability in the Russian frontline, and to try to demonstrate that Ukraine can drive the Russians back in places before winter sets in.
It is a struggle about Kyiv’s ability to act proactively as much as it is about recapturing the occupied city itself.
Read Dan Sabbagh’s full analysis: Push to retake Kherson is symbol of Ukraine’s cautious confidence
A woman from eastern Ukraine has been detained after she was accused of sending the locations of her soldier husband’s unit to Russian military intelligence, according to Ukraine’s state security service.
The 31-year-old unnamed woman from the Dnipropetrovsk region passed on information about the locations of military buildings and equipment along frontline positions in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, it said in a statement.
The agency said the woman would question her husband about the location of his unit and other Ukrainian formations on the frontline.
She would then pass on the information “through messenger applications to Russian military intelligence, where it was used for artillery and airstrikes”, it said.
The statement continued:
She took this step despite the fact that she is married to a serviceman of the armed forces of Ukraine, and that they have a son together.
Alex Lawson
The G7 countries have agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil in an attempt to stem the flow of funds into the Kremlin’s war coffers.
Finance ministers from the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada have agreed a plan to put a ceiling on Russian oil prices. The proposal would mean importers seeking shipping services and insurance cover from companies based in G7 and EU countries would need to adhere to a price cap to transport Russian oil.
The cap is expected to be introduced at the same time as planned EU embargoes on Russian oil kick in – on 5 December for crude and 5 February for refined products, such as diesel. The level of the cap is still being discussed.
UK chancellor Nadhim Zahawi said the decision followed a meeting earlier this week with US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen in Washington.
Yellen said the measure would be implemented “in the weeks to come” and represents a “major blow for Russian finances and will hinder Russia’s ability to fight its unprovoked war in Ukraine”.
Read the full story by Alex Lawson here.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
-
Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers have announced they plan to implement a price cap on Russian oil. In a statement, G7 ministers said the cap was designed to reduce “Russia’s ability to fund its war of aggression” and said they would “urgently work on the finalisation and implementation” of the measure but left out key details of the plan.
-
Prior to the G7 announcement, the Kremlin warned that imposing a price cap on Russian oil exports would trigger Russian retaliation. If G7 leaders decide to impose price caps on Russian oil, it will lead to significant destabilisation of the global oil market, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
-
Ukraine’s military has claimed that Russian forces suffered “significant losses” in the southern region of Kherson following Kyiv’s counteroffensive launched earlier this week. Ukraine’s successes have been “quite convincing”, according to a spokesperson for the southern Ukrainian military command, who added that more “positive news” will likely follow “very soon”.
-
Ukrainian troops have pushed back Russian forces at several points around Kherson, according to western officials. Officials estimate that about 20,000 Russian troops are in the pocket of the southern region, and caution that it is too soon to determine if Ukraine’s counterattack is working.
-
The “physical integrity” of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in south-eastern Ukraine has been “violated”, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said. Rafael Grossi, who led a team of inspectors to the Russian-controlled plant on Thursday, said that although he would continue to worry about the plant, the situation was “more predictable” now.
-
An expert team from the UN nuclear agency plan to stay at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after gaining long-awaited access to the site on Thursday. “We are not going anywhere. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is now there, it is at the plant and it is not moving – it’s going to stay there,” Grossi told reporters after returning to Ukrainian-held territory.
-
Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of manipulating and distorting information shared with the IAEA. Ukrainian state-owned operator Energoatom said in a statement that Russian officials “are making every effort to prevent the IAEA mission from getting to know the real state of affairs. They spread manipulative and false information about this visit.”
-
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has accused Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism”. Pro-Russian proxy authorities in Zaporizhzhia have accused Kyiv of trying to smuggle “spies” into the IAEA inspection team posing as journalists.
-
The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, has restated the expansionist military aims of Russia’s invasion. “Our task is to liberate all Russian cities that were founded by Russian people during the time of the Russian Empire, and developed during the Soviet Union thanks to the help of our entire vast country,” Pushilin said. “This is not only the territories of Novorossia [the Donbas], but also much wider. It will not be any other way.”
Hello all, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here with all the latest developments from Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
The agreement by G7 finance ministers to impose a price cap on Russian oil will “curtail Putin’s capacity to fund his war” in Ukraine, Britain’s chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has said.
In a statement, Zahawi said further action against Putin was a “personal priority as Chancellor”.
Zahawi said:
Since Putin’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the UK and our allies have imposed hugely damaging sanctions on the Kremlin war machine, pushing the Russian economy into a deep recession and putting the majority of Russia’s 640 billion dollars foreign exchange reserves beyond use.
He added:
We will curtail Putin’s capacity to fund his war from oil exports by banning services, such as insurance and the provision of finance, to vessels carrying Russian oil above an agreed price cap.
We are united against this barbaric aggression and will do all we can to support Ukraine as they fight for sovereignty, democracy and freedom.
G7 agree to impose price cap on Russian oil
Finance ministers from the Group of Seven advanced nations have agreed they will “urgently” move towards imposing a price cap on Russian oil imports, aimed at stopping Moscow from raking in huge profits from soaring energy prices.
In a statement, G7 ministers said they would “urgently work on the finalisation and implementation” of the measure but left out key details of the plan.
They confirmed their commitment to the plan after a virtual meeting but said the per-barrel level of the price cap would be determined later “based on a range of technical inputs” to be agreed by the coalition of countries.
The G7 ministers said:
Today we confirm our joint political intention to finalise and implement a comprehensive prohibition of services which enable maritime transportation of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products globally.
The price cap is is “specifically designed” to reduce “Russia’s ability to fund its war of aggression whilst limiting the impact of Russia’s war on global energy prices, particularly for low and middle-income countries”, they said.
The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
Discussion about this post