The flows in the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline remain stuck in reverse, boosting benchmark European gas futures by about 15% this week. The pipeline has not sent Russian gas to Germany since Saturday. Instead, gas is flowing from Germany to Poland in a reversal after requests to transport gas westwards were abruptly cancelled.
According to German operator Gascade’s website, requests to transport gas into Germany via the pipeline fell to zero after hitting 13,521,200 KWh/h for Thursday. News about the reversal pushed the front-month TTF gas contract up nearly 11% to €78.95 ($91.5) per MWh, rebounding from €75 ($86.9) per MWh when the entry renominations were published.
The reversal came after European politicians accused Russia of withholding gas supplies to pressure German and EU regulators to issue permits for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Moscow has denied this and has said it is delivering its term volumes according to contracts. However, traders said that European gas prices would unlikely decrease significantly until Russia sent consistent supplies via the pipeline.
