Tiny amounts of gas that briefly appeared in the Russian Nord Stream 1 pipeline earlier on Wednesday, weeks after it was ruptured in the Baltic Sea, were down to a glitch in the flow metering service, the operator said.
Gas flows were at 102 kilowatt-hours per hour (kwh/h) between 0700-0800 CET (0500-0600 GMT) on Oct. 19 from zero, and at 119 an hour later, the data showed. The data subsequently showed the flows dropped back to zero starting from 0900 CET. Before a stoppage in late August, Nord Stream 1 carried some 14,000,000 kwh/h of Russian gas.
A spokesperson for Nord Stream's operator said: "The readings on the receiving terminal are the flow meter signal interference, which is automatically uploaded to the web server.
There was no movement of gas through the pipeline." Small amounts of gas in the idle Nord Stream 1 pipelines have been detected before, including in early September. Industry sources attributed this to glitches in metering facilities.
Dwindling flows of gas from Russia, which once supplied 40% of Europe's needs, has to unite over how to respond to surging prices that have deepened a cost-of-living crisis for families and businesses.