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Did Nord Stream 1 gas flows ever resume on schedule?
Summary
A look back at the Gazprom announcements that extended a pipeline shutdown, as reported in the first days of September 2022.
What happens when a three-day pause in a major gas pipeline stretches beyond its deadline? That was the question facing Europe on 2 September 2022.
On 31 August 2022, Russia's Gazprom announced the complete shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline for three days of unscheduled maintenance. The announcement set an expectation that supplies to Europe would restart within days.
On 2 September, Gazprom said flows would not resume the following day, as the shutdown period had implied. It cited a reported oil leak in a turbine. The company gave no new time frame for restarting the pipeline. The announcement came after the G7's announcement, which the reports linked to the Gazprom statement.
The two statements, issued two days apart, turned a short, defined maintenance window into an open-ended halt. For European buyers, the practical effect was uncertainty: the stated reason had changed from unscheduled maintenance to a turbine fault, and no date for resumption was offered.
The episode formed part of what was described as the 2022 Russia–European Union gas dispute.
