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BERLIN — Russia's Gazprom said Monday that it would further reduce natural gas flows through a major pipeline to Europe to 20% of capacity, citing equipment repairs. The move escalates tensions overjust as the continent is trying to shore up its storage for winter.
The Russian state-owned company tweeted that it would reduce “the daily throughput” of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany to 33 million cubic meters as of Wednesday, saying it was shutting down a second turbine for repairs. The head of Germany's network regulator confirmed the reduction. “The halving of the nomination of NordStream1 was announced for the day after tomorrow,” tweeted Klaus Mueller.reopened after 10 days of scheduled maintenance
last week. The German government said it rejected the notion that technical reasons would lead to further gas reductions. “We are monitoring the situation very closely in close exchange with the federal network agency and the gas crisis team,” the German economy ministry said in a statement Monday after Gazprom’s announcement. “According to our information, there is no technical reason for a reduction in deliveries.”