SIt weighs 20 tons and is up to 14 meters long. Nevertheless, it is considered a rather small model. The gas turbine for the Russian Gazprom group, which the whole of Germany is talking about, is part of a compressor station for gas transport through the 1,200-kilometer-long Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea. For weeks now, however, the turbine has not been driving compressors, but political events.
The reason: The Russian operating company claims that the reduced energy supplies are due to the missing gas turbine. According to the company, the said turbine from the house of the energy technology group Siemens Energy was sent to Canada for maintenance even before Russia attacked Ukraine. However, the government there did not want to release the overhauled turbine for export in view of the sanctions against Russia.
At the request of the German government, the turbine is now supposed to be brought to Russia by plane via Germany. Berlin and the German turbine supplier have not yet provided any further details of the transport. Just this much: “Our experts are currently working flat out on all other formal approvals and the logistics,” said a company spokesman on request. Among other things, these are processes that are subject to export and import controls. “Our goal is to transport the turbine to its place of use as quickly as possible.”
Technical review in Montreal
The gas turbine comes from the family of so-called aeroderivative gas turbines, which were originally developed for aviation but are also used in other areas, including the oil and gas industry. The German group carries out the maintenance of these turbines exclusively at its Montreal location. Only the factory there is designed and certified for this, they say. Maintenance – similar to an inspection of a car – takes between one and three months and is carried out approximately every two to three years, depending on the stress and use. For example, blades are exchanged. During this time, a replacement turbine will be installed on site to bridge the maintenance period. Gazprom also has such spare machines.
But why Canada? This in turn is historical. At that time, the British company Rolls-Royce received the order for the turbines for Nord Stream 1, which has delivered eight such machines to the Russian contract partner since 2010. A few years later, Siemens took over the business from the British – and with it the location in Canada. The energy technology business, in turn, has been listed independently on the stock exchange as Siemens Energy since autumn 2020.
