Russian gas flows via Yamal pipeline run in reverse for second day
MOSCOW, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Russian gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Germany continued to flow in reverse mode for a second day on Tuesday, data from Germany's network operator Gascade showed.
European gas prices hit a new record high on Tuesday after Yamal switched direction, a move the Kremlin said had no political implications, while two big German customers said Gazprom was meeting supply obligations.
The flows at the Mallnow metering point on the German-Polish border were going east from Germany into Poland at an hourly volume of around 1,180,000 kilowatt hours (kWh/h) on Wednesday and are expected to stay at these levels for the rest of the day, the data shows.
Gazprom has been booking extra capacity at auctions for delivery via Ukraine and to Germany via the Yamal route when it sees requests. It had not booked capacity for exports via Yamal for Wednesday.
Nominations for Wednesday's volumes at the Velke Kapusany metering point on the Slovakia-Ukraine border, another major route to Europe, were for 898,439.2 megawatt hours (MWh), or 82.6 million cubic metres, roughly 5% below the levels seen so far in December.
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova and Oksana Kobzeva in Moscow, Robert Muller in Prague; editing by Jason Neely)
