BERLIN, July 19 Reuters Gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline showed a rise in flows late on Tuesday ahead of the scheduled end of annual maintenance on Thursday, as the operator carried out pressure tests.

Hourly flows through the pipeline, the main source of natural gas fuelling Europe39;s largest economy, Germany, have been at zero since July 11, when 10 days of maintenance began.

The planned outage on the biggest single pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany is expected to end at 0600 CET 0400 GMT on July 21. It transports 55 billion cubic metres bcm a year of gas under the Baltic Sea.

Data for 2021 and 2020 show that gas flows via Nord Stream 1 resumed on time after the end of the maintenance periods.

But there have been fears among governments and business that flows will not restart straight away if a repaired turbine being sent from Canada is not installed in time and after Gazprom declared force majeure to some European customers, excusing it from contractual obligations.

Data from the operator39;s website showed flows of 23,681 kwhh between 1600 and 1700 CET 1400 and 1600 GMT. A similar spike took place two hours before, when flows leapt from zero to 27,137 kwhh for the hour from 1200 GMT before falling back to zero.

Nord Stream39;s operator said gas volumes seen on the company39;s flows website are related to technically required pressure equalisation ahead of the end of maintenance.

Nominations the volume of gas requested remained at zero despite…