The labor dispute had shut down oil and gas fields and was expected to cut Norway’s natural gas supplies by nearly 60 percent by the weekend. Gasco, Oslo’s state-owned pipeline operator, had warned that “in a worst-case scenario, deliveries to the UK could stop completely”. The workers demanded a pay rise to counter rising inflation, fueled in part by rising oil and gas prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the Norwegian government has the power to intervene to end industrial disputes. The country’s labor minister, Marte Mjøs Persen, said: “When the conflict can have such great social consequences for the whole of Europe, I have no choice but to intervene in the conflict.” Natural gas prices had soared in recent days as the strike threatened to worsen an existing supply crisis, but their rally stalled on Wednesday after the announcement. However, this respite from rising gas prices may be short-lived, with the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany scheduled for maintenance from July 11-21. Goldman Sachs said it does not believe flows through Nord Stream 1 will be fully restored after the work is completed. The investment bank raised its forecast for European natural gas prices to 153 euros per MWh on average in the third quarter of 2022, 121 euros in the fourth quarter and 138 euros next summer. The Dutch wholesale contract for September delivery fell 7.5% to 161 euros per MWh on Wednesday. European countries are scrambling to fill their natural gas storage facilities before winter, fearing that Russia will cut off supplies completely. Britain gets about a third of its natural gas from Norway and the rest from a combination of the North Sea, other parts of Europe and LNG imports from the rest of the world, including the US. Subscribe to the Business Today daily email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter @BusinessDesk Germany is much more dependent on Russian gas and fears are growing about the negative consequences of a reduction in gas supplies from Russia. Deutsche Bank analyst Jim Reid said: “Finance Minister [Robert] Habeck has talked about natural gas as potentially a Lehman Brothers moment, so the stakes are high. Indeed, this is a heavy cloud hanging over European assets at the moment.” Samuel Tombs, the chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said Britain could cope with Russian gas. He said: “The small hole left by Russian imports to zero by the end of this year – as the UK government has pledged – should be easily covered by a pickup in LNG imports from the US and Qatar.” Separately on Wednesday, a Russian court told the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which transports oil from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea, to halt operations for 30 days. The pipeline is one of the largest in the world and exports about 1.2 million barrels per day. Despite the court ruling, exports are still flowing, Reuters reported.
