Market Wire: Euro Tumbles as Russia Confirms Political Motivations for Gas Shutdown
European natural gas prices jumped more than 35 percent and the euro slid this morning after the Kremlin appeared to confirm that gas flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would not resume until Western sanctions were lifted. The Financial Times and the Interfax news agency quoted Russian press secretary Dmitry Peskov saying, “The problems pumping gas came about because of the sanctions western countries introduced against our country and several companies. There are no other reasons that could have caused this pumping problem”. Russian energy giant Gazprom had previously claimed increasingly-frequent shutdowns were technical issues, resulting from an inability...