Gas began flowing early Thursday through a pipeline that normally provides more than a third of Germany’s needs as well as essential gas supplies to several of its European partners.
The pipeline, Nord Stream 1, had been offline since July 11 for its scheduled annual maintenance. But amid tensions between Moscow and Europe over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many on the continent feared that Russia would not resume gas flows afterward.
A spokesman for Nord Stream AG, the company that manages the pipeline, said that gas had begun flowing early Thursday. It will take several hours before it reaches the 30 percent capacity that Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant, had booked through the pipeline.
