Yamal gas pipeline halted after overnight westward flows

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A view shows a gas processing facility, operated by Gazprom company, at Bovanenkovo gas field on the Arctic Yamal peninsula, Russia May 21, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Russian Yamal-Europe pipeline was halted on Wednesday after westbound flows overnight from Poland to Germany while there were bids for eastbound supply, data from pipeline operator Gascade showed on Wednesday.

Overnight flows via the Mallnow metering point were at around 16 million to 19 million kilowatt-hours per hour (kWh/h) overnight, the data showed.

There were no further bids for westbound supply, while bids for eastbound delivery from Germany to Poland stood at over 5 million kWh/h until at least Thursday morning.

The German-Polish section of the pipeline switched into reverse mode on Dec. 21 as buyers in Poland drew on stored supplies from Germany rather than buying more Russian gas at high spot prices. [NG/EU]

Russian gas supplier Gazprom (MCX:GAZP) in recent days has intermittingly sent gas westward via the link amid high demand in Europe.

The pipeline usually accounts for about 15% of Russia’s westbound supply of gas to Europe and Turkey.

Gazprom also said on Wednesday that it was shipping gas to Europe via Ukraine, another major route for Russian deliveries, in line with customers’ requests.

It said the requests stood at 109.4 million cubic metres as of March 2, broadly in line with previous day’s level.

Capacity nominations for supply to Slovakia from Ukraine via the Velke Kapusany border point, were expected to hit their highest level so far in 2022, at 881,917 megawatt hours (MWh) on Wednesday.