Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that Moscow would restart the Nord Stream natural-gas pipeline to Europe on Thursday but warned that flows could be curbed soon after if sanctions prevent additional maintenance on its components. Nord Stream, the main artery for Russian gas to Europe, is currently down due to regular maintenance and European governments are worried the Kremlin won’t restore its flow when the work ends Thursday. A prolonged outage could prompt governments to ration energy, hurting industry and hitting already fragile economic growth.
In late Tuesday comments during his visit to Tehran, Iran, Putin said that “Gazprom
RU:GAZP
has always fulfilled and will fulfill all of its obligations.” But the Russian president added that unless turbines came back soon, flows might fall next week to some 20% of capacity. Putin said that another turbine had to go for maintenance on July 26. Write to Georgi Kantchev at [email protected]