Russian gas deliveries via TurkStream to halt June 21-28 for annual maintenance

Russia's Gazprom said June 18 that gas shipments via both lines of its TurkStream pipeline will be temporarily suspended June 21-28 due to scheduled annual maintenance.

"All interested parties agreed to the gas transportation suspension in advance," Gazprom said in a statement posted on its Telegram channel.

The suspension comes amid major disruptions to Gazprom's supplies to Europe, with flows through the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany currently capped at just 67 million cu m/d -- 40% of the pipeline's capacity -- after Gazprom reported issues with maintenance of gas turbines at its Portovaya compressor station.

Gazprom had already halted supplies to Bulgaria, which was receiving gas via TurkStream, on April 27 after Bulgargaz refused to pay using a new ruble mechanism, introduced in response to Russian asset seizures abroad.

One of Turk Stream's 15.75 Bcm/year strings enters Bulgaria at Strandzha. From there gas is supplied to Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Hungary.

The other line supplies Turkey directly.

Supplies via Turk Stream were 0.82 Bcm in May, analysis of flow data from S&P Global Commodity Insights showed.

Shipments were below 1 Bcm for the second month in a row after being above 1 Bcm for the first three months of 2022.

Total gas deliveries into southeast Europe via Turk Stream in 2021 amounted to 11.6 Bcm, or an average of 32 million cu m/d.

At the end of a turbulent week, Platts assessed European benchmark TTF front-month gas at Eur118.50/MWh on June 17, down Eur1.85 on the day but up by 42% week on week, from a starting position that was already double the pre-2021 record for the contract, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights data.