After a 3-day halt, Russian energy giant Gazprom was expected to resume critical supplies of nat gas to Europe via Nord Stream 1 tomorrow, but it appears that Putin who is enjoying the game of cat and mouse a little too much, had other plans and as a result, Russian gas flows toward Europe won’t be coming back any time soon, as moments ago Gazprom announced that it had “completely halted” transport of gas to Nord Stream until a previously undetected oil leakage is rectified.

That could takes hours, days… or months.

GAZPROM ISSUES STATEMENT ON NORD STREAM 1 MAINTENANCE GAZPROM: TRANSPORT OF GAS TO THE NORD STREAM PIPELINE HAS BEEN COMPLETELY HALTED UNTIL FAULTS ARE RECTIFIED GAZPROM: DURING ROUTINE MAINTENANCE WORKS OIL LEAKAGE WAS DETECTED GAS SUPPLIES TO NORD STREAM FULLY STOPPED GAZPROM STATEMENT GIVES NO TIME FRAME FOR RESTART OF GAS SUPPLY THROUGH NORD STREAM 1

The “shocking development” is a massive blow to Europe, which is scrambling to fill up its gas storage ahead of winter and which has been trying to guess Moscow’s next steps in the energy war for weeks.

To quote Walter Sobchak, “Mark it zero” for the foreseeable future.

That means that Europe will now be forced to rely even more on… well… Russian gas, in the form of much more expensive LNG resold by China. And after tumbling by more than 50% in the past few days, we fully expect European gas prices are about to go super parabolic and take out all time highs as soon as trading returns on Monday.

As Bloomberg puts it, “it marks a dramatic escalation in Europe’s energy crisis — and comes just as prices were easing. If the shutdown persists, it puts households, factories and economies at risk, weakening Europe’s hand as it backs Ukraine in the war against Russia.” Said otherwise, millions of virtue signalers will be cold, hungry and in the dark this winter but at least they will have an Ukraine flag in their twitter bio.

The news promptly sent spoos sliding back under 4000 as any hope Europe’s energy hyperinflation was finally over were just steamrolled by the Russian president.