The pipeline delivers approximately one-sixth of the amount of Russian gas to Europe and Turkey each year. It was reversed for 12 days and then increased on Saturday. However, requests for westbound deliveries indicated that the unusual reversal could be ending soon.
The flow of gas from Germany to Poland was at an elevated level early Saturday. Data at the Mallnow metering station on the border showed that the hourly volume was more than 5.2 Million Kilowatt Hours (kWh/h), compared with the previous 24 hours, which averaged around 1.2 Million kWh/h.
However, Friday’s requests for westbound gas were received via Mallnow at 8.3 million kWh/h on Jan. 1, and Saturday at 6 million kWh/h on Saturday, according to data from Gascade, a German network operator.
Gazprom, Russia’s largest gas exporter, has not booked gas transit capacity for Saturday, according to auction results.
Gazprom secured 8.3 million kWh/h in gas transit capacity via its pipeline for January through an auction last month.
Reversed flows that began Dec 21 sent already high European gas prices up to new records.
According to industry sources and analysts, the unusual reversal inflows occurred because of high spot prices and traders who used up their Gazprom annual volumes early.
Separately, Russian Gas Flows from Ukraine to Slovakia via Velke Kapusany Border Point, another major route, dropped to their lowest volume since Nov 2.
According to data from Eustream, a Slovakian pipeline operator, capacity nominations fell to 524,631 megawatts (MWh) on Saturday, down from 887,094MWh Friday.
