MOSCOW, Aug. 9 - The Nord Stream gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, which has capacity to ship 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year, halted operations on 7:00 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday for a scheduled maintenance shutdown until August 17, German pipeline operator Nord Stream AG reported.

"This routine maintenance work will require a temporary shutdown of both lines at once. The full capacity of the pipeline system will be available again by August 19, 2016, when additional planned work of our upstream partner in the Russian section is concluded," Nord Stream said.