Russia halts natural gas flows to Germany again.

So far, the results have been mixed. German gas storage facilities have reached more than 83 percent of capacity and appear likely to meet the government’s goal of 90 percent by Nov. 1.

On the other hand, the cutoffs of flows and worries about supplies in the coming months have driven natural gas prices in Europe to record levels in recent weeks, inflicting some of the economic damage that the efforts to store up gas are aimed at preventing.

Gazprom is not only aiming at Germany. On Tuesday, Engie, a large French utility, said that Gazprom had informed the company that it was cutting gas supplies over a contract dispute. “Russia is using gas as a weapon of war and we must prepare for the worst case scenario of a complete interruption of supplies,” France’s energy transition minister, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, told France Inter radio, Reuters reported.

On Monday, Uniper, a German utility that is one of Europe’s largest natural gas buyers and suppliers, said that it had already exhausted a 9 billion euro credit facility from the German government and was asking for €4 billion more.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/business/russia-natural-gas-germany.html