“If Russia really turns off the tap” some gas “Europe will be very badly in the fall”warns Philippe Chalmin, specialist in energy issues, on franceinfo on Wednesday July 20. “We will know in a few days”, says the specialist. Maintenance, underway since July 11, on the Nord Stream I gas pipeline is due to end normally on Thursday. If the tap is not reopened, Europe must prepare for difficult months: “We will not have enough gas. Sobriety will have to be imposed on Europeans.” The household purse could also suffer from this energy crisis affecting France, because “the price of electricity is roughly correlated to the price of natural gas”he explains.
Can Russia really completely cut off our gas?
Philippe Chalmin: It is quite plausible and at the limit, we will find out in a few days. Currently, Russia has cut off gas to Europe for technical reasons. Every year, the Nord Stream I gas pipeline is under maintenance. It started on July 11 and normally ends on July 21. The big question is whether the Russians will resume their delivery or if they will argue new technical problems.
Gazprom, the Russian state company which is the interlocutor of European gas companies, sent them a letter on July 14 saying and arguing about the probable difficulty of delivering gas for technical reasons and wants to report what is called the situation of “force majeure”. “Force majeure” is when you are unable to fulfill a contract. We see that Gazprom is trying to maintain form, but obviously the Russian government is using the gas weapon and above all doing everything possible to prevent Europe from continuing to fill its storage capacities to try to tackle winter with as much gas as possible.
What can be the European response?
We don’t have much. Quite frankly, we know the solutions. We have coal-fired power stations, we try to rent as many floating terminals as possible to receive liquefied natural gas, American shale gas. We are no longer watching at all. Anyway, if Russia really turns off the tap, Europe will be very badly in the fall. We will not have enough gas or at least we will not have enough gas in the places where it is needed, especially in Germany. There will be regional gas supply problems.
Especially since our gas distribution network in Europe, the gas pipelines, is not equipped for this type of situation. We have a network within Europe that is essentially designed with the arrival of gas from northern Europe. We had mainly Russian gas which initially passed through Ukraine, Poland and which now mainly passes through this famous Nord Stream I gas pipeline which passes under the Baltic. In addition, we don’t have the regasification sites where the LNG tankers arrive bringing liquefied natural gas. These sites are rather in the Iberian Peninsula. We have some in France, but there would be practically none in northern Europe. There are none in Germany either.
Sobriety will necessarily impose itself on us?
It’s obvious. Sobriety and by the way, it must be pointed out, a price constraint. Natural gas in the 2010s, so from 2010 to 2019, it was worth on the market between 5 and 15 euros per megawatt hour. Today, we are at 150 euros. We do not feel it, we households, since the price of gas is capped in France. But there should be no illusions. Companies are already starting to pay the market price. And then, one day, it may also be the turn of households. Behind the gas, you have to realize that there is also the price of electricity since roughly speaking, the price of electricity is more or less correlated to the price of natural gas.