Gazprom will reduce the supply of gas from the Nord Stream, which connects with Germany, by 40 percent

MADRID, 14 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Russian gas company Gazprom has announced that it will reduce by 40 percent the supply it sends through the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which connects Russia with Germany, although it attributes this to delays in the repairs of several equipment by the German firm Siemens.

These problems will mean, according to Gazprom, that instead of pumping some 167 million cubic meters of gas per day, the capacity will be reduced to 100 million, reports the Interfax news agency. The gas pipeline starts from Russia and reaches Germany through the Baltic Sea.

The Russian company has not alluded to political reasons for this new cut, which it has announced just a few days after the government stressed that there would be no further retaliation against "hostile" countries that had not complied with the order to pay for gas in rubles.

Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark have suffered these cuts, derived from a new payment system with which the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, wanted to punish the governments that had adopted sanctions against Moscow as a result of the military offensive in Ukraine.

The procedure establishes that international clients must open special accounts in the Gazprombank, one for payments in foreign currency and another for conversations in rubles, from which the final payment to the Gazprom company would start. The European Commission has concluded that abiding by this system does not imply violating EU sanctions, since the initial payment is made in euros or dollars.