European gas prices jumped as much as 30 percent on Monday following Russia's Friday announcement that it is shutting off natural gas exports to the continent through its Nord Stream 1 pipeline indefinitely, Reuters and The Guardian report.
Russia's state energy provider, Gazprom, claims it is shutting down the pipeline due to an oil leak that needs to be repaired, though European leaders have accused Moscow of squeezing gas supplies "in retaliation against sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine," The Guardian explains, adding that "the threatened cuts to supplies of gas from Russia have prompted a scramble by European countries to store as much gas as possible before winter, as well as efforts to find alternative supplies."
The Nord Stream pipeline normally supplies more than a third of the gas exported to Europe from Russia, though it had already been running at a much lower capacity before the Friday announcement. "Supply is hard to come by, and it becomes harder and harder to replace every bit of gas that doesn't come from Russia," Jacob Mandel, senior associate for commodities at Aurora Energy Research, told Reuters.