The manager of the French gas transmission network GRTgaz announced Friday that it will no longer receive Russian gas by pipeline since June 15, with “the interruption of the physical flow between France and Germany”.
France relies on Russia for around 17% of its gas, which can arrive by gas pipeline or in liquid form by LNG carriers. The vast majority of imported gas usually arrived by pipeline, through this single point of interconnection with Germany.
Flows had already been reduced by 60% since the start of the year and this import point was already operating at only 10% of its capacity “at the start of 2022”, according to GRTgaz.
For two days, the supply has fallen to zero.
GRTgaz does not know the cause of this cut but it comes at a time when Gazprom has considerably reduced gas deliveries to Germany, via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline.
However, France imports gas from other countries including Spain, which has recently increased its deliveries.
And above all, it has increased its purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which arrives by LNG tanker in terminals close to their technical maximum, according to GRTgaz.
So much so that France has become the biggest buyer of Russian LNG in the world, according to Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Center for research on energy and clean Air (CREA), which published a report on Russian oil and gas sales this week.
But the French manager GRTgaz has reassured about the filling of French stocks, with a view to next winter, which amounts to 56% against 50% usually on the same date.