Officials in Minsk said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s supplies will be terminated this Thursday, in accordance with established procedures. According to Belarus’s Ministry of Energy, the future renewal of electricity access “will be considered by the Belarusian side, taking into account technical capabilities”. The decision was announced a day after German regulators suspended the approval process on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia.
The approval process may now be delayed until as late as March.
The move has dealt a blow to Europe’s already fragile energy market and the price of natural gas spiked on Wednesday.
The global energy crunch has taken the continent by surprise and suppliers have been struggling in recent months to meet the increased demand for energy.
Gas prices have already soared since the year began and many experts now fear Europe will not have enough gas to keep homes warm this winter.
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Jeremy Weir, the chief executive of commodity trading giant Trafigura warned this week at the FT Commodities Asia Summit that not enough gas is being stored for the cold months ahead.
He said: “So hence there’s real concern that there’s a potential if we have a cold winter that we could have rolling blackouts in Europe.”
Europe relies heavily on the import of gas from outside of the EU’s borders, with Russia being the bloc’s biggest supplier.
But there is a concern that Moscow has been deliberately withholding supplies to gain political leverage and push through the approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Only then will the four-month-long certification process resume.
A German government source said: “I expect that the start of Nord Stream 2 could be delayed until March 2022.”
Analysts at the investment bank Goldman Sachs meanwhile predict the pipeline will not be up and running until at least February.
They wrote: “The timeline for the start of the pipe now appears longer than what we initially expected.”