(Reuters) -A section of the Russian Yamal-Europe pipeline resumed eastbound gas delivery to Poland from Germany on Tuesday following normal, westbound supplies overnight, data from German network operator Gascade showed.
Global commodity and financial markers have been shattered by Russia’s invasion in Ukraine since last week, an action, which Moscow calls “special operation”. The Kremlin has pledged to continue exports of gas, a key source of its budget revenue.
The data showed that supplies to Poland from Germany via the Mallnow metering point have been at over 5 million kilowatt-hours per hour since Tuesday morning.
The pipeline shipped gas to the west for around six hours last night before halting in the morning.
Preliminary bids showed that the eastbound flows are expected to continue until at least Wednesday morning.
Gas in the German-Polish section of the pipeline had been flowing eastward since Dec. 21 as buyers in Poland drew on stored supplies from Germany rather than buying more Russian gas at high spot prices. [NG/EU]
Russian gas giant Gazprom briefly resumed supplies via the link to the West at the start of the weekend amid high demand in Europe, especially from Italy, an industry source told Reuters.
The pipeline usually accounts for about 15% of Russia’s westbound supply of gas to Europe and Turkey.
Following the transit deal between Poland and Russia was not resumed in 2020, Gazprom books the transit capacity via pipeline at auctions on short-term and mid-term basis.
The Kremlin-controlled company resumed booking westbound transit capacity via the pipeline at daily auctions in recent days.
Gazprom has not ordered any transit capacity for February and March via the route at monthly auctions, nor has it booked capacity for the second and third quarters of the year.
The company also said on Tuesday that it was shipping gas via Ukraine, another major route for Russian deliveries to Europe, in line with customers’ requests.
It said the requests stood at 109.6 million cubic metres as of March 1, up from 105.8 million cubic metres on Feb. 28.
Capacity nominations for supply to Slovakia from Ukraine via the Velke Kapusany border point, were expected at their highest level so far in 2022, at 880,636 megawatt hour (MWh) on Tuesday.
Nominations rose at the end of last week and have been above the 850,000 MWh level since Friday.
(Reporting by Moscow newsroom and Jason Hovet in Prague; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Louise Heavens)
