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Why did Nord Stream 1 stay shut?
Summary
A look back at the day Gazprom tied the pipeline's restart to the lifting of sanctions on Russia.
What did Gazprom say about the future of Nord Stream 1 on 5 September 2022? The Russian company announced that gas flows through the pipeline to Europe would not resume until sanctions against Russia were lifted.
The statement followed a series of shifting explanations. On 31 August 2022, Gazprom announced a complete shutdown of the pipeline for three days of unscheduled maintenance. That work was expected to end on 2 September.
On 2 September 2022, after the G7's announcement, Gazprom said flows would not restart the next day because of a reported oil leak in a turbine. It gave no new time frame for resumption.
The announcement on 5 September 2022 therefore replaced a technical rationale with an explicit condition: flows would stay halted until sanctions were lifted. The announcement formed part of the wider 2022 dispute between Russia and the European Union over gas supplies.
