MOSCOW, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Flows along the Yamal-Europe pipeline that carries Russian gas west into Europe remained reversed for a 12th day and increased on Saturday, but requests for westbound deliveries suggested the unusual reversal might end soon.
The pipeline annually delivers about one-sixth of the gas Russia sends to Europe and Turkey. read more
But on Friday requests for westbound gas emerged via Mallnow for Jan. 1 at 8.3 million kWh/h and on Saturday stood at more than 6 million kWh/h, data from German network operator Gascade showed. read more
Russian gas exporter Gazprom has not booked gas transit capacity on the pipeline for Saturday, auction results showed.
Gazprom booked 8.3 million kWh/h of gas transit capacity via the pipeline for January in an auction last month.
Those high spot prices, and traders using up their annual volumes of contracted gas from Gazprom early prompted sellers in Germany, for example, to tap storage to sell to buyers in Poland, prompting the unusual reversal of flows, according to analysts and industry sources. read more
Separately, Russian gas flows from Ukraine to Slovakia via the Velke Kapusany border point, another major route, fell to their lowest volume since Nov 2.
Capacity nominations for Saturday were down to 524,631 megawatt hours (MWh) from 887,094 MWh on Friday, data from Slovak pipeline operator Eustream showed.
