Sweden, Denmark say Nord Stream pipeline blasts were deliberate attacks – POLITICO
Sweden and Denmark said on Tuesday that explosions on two Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea were acts of sabotage, although neither country was ready to identify the culprit.
“It is the authorities’ assessment that it is about deliberate actions. It is not an accident”, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday, an assessment from earlier in the day hardens. “The situation is as serious as it gets,” she added in statements on Danish media.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson agreed: “We have Swedish information and we have also been in contact with Denmark, and based on this we have concluded that this is likely to be an intentional act, that is to say that it is likely to be an act of sabotage.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki went further and hinted at direct Russian involvement.
“We don’t yet know the details of what happened, but we can clearly see that it is sabotage,” he said at a joint appearance with Frederiksen earlier in the day, calling it “the next step in the escalation of the situation we are facing in Ukraine.”
Two of the leaks were near the twin Nord Stream 1 pipeline, northeast of Denmark’s Bornholm Island, and one leak was reported near the Nord Stream 2 pipeline off the island’s southeast coast, the Danish Maritime Authority said on Tuesday. The incidents are just beyond Denmark’s territorial waters, with two in Denmark’s exclusive economic zone and one in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone — areas where the sea has the status of international waters.
Sweden’s national seismic network detected two clear explosions in the area on Monday, one at 2:03 a.m. and the other at 7:04 p.m. reported the national broadcaster SVT.
A no-go zone of 5 nautical miles was established around each of the sites, which are at a likely depth of 60 meters to 70 meters, the Baltic maritime agencies said.
The Danish military was released pictures of clouds of gas bubbles rolling over the surface of the sea.
Asked on Tuesday whether the leaks were the result of sabotage, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied. said: “We cannot rule out any possibility at this time. Obviously, there is some kind of destruction of the pipe. Until the results of the investigation, it is impossible to rule out any option.”
“This is a completely unprecedented situation that requires an urgent investigation,” he added.
Nord Stream 2, which is not in operation, was nevertheless filled with 177 million cubic meters of natural gas — value 358 million euros in current prices — to bring the pipeline pressure up to 300 bar while waiting to flow. Germany froze approval of the pipeline after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At the German landfall, pipeline pressure was recorded at 7 bar, the German infrastructure regulator said on Monday.
“Today we were informed by the grid operator Gascade that there has been a severe pressure drop in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” the infrastructure regulator said in an emailed statement. “We still have no clarity about the causes and the exact facts.”
The double-stranded subsea gas connection runs 1,200 kilometers through Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Danish and German territorial waters.
Nord Stream 2 AG, the pipeline’s owner and operator, did not respond to requests for comment. The pipeline is owned by Russian Gazprom.
The parallel Nord Stream 1 pipeline was fully opened in 2012. It has a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters per year, but Russia has stopped sending gas to Germany, claiming the pipeline needs maintenance. German politicians accuse the Kremlin of faking repairs to retaliate against EU aid to Ukraine.
Nord Stream AG, the company that owns Nord Stream 1 and is a consortium in which Gazprom has a majority stake and includes four Western energy companies, said on Monday evening: “Dispatchers from the Nord Stream 1 control center recorded a drop in pressure on both strings of the gas pipeline. The causes are being investigated.”
Given that it took weeks for Nord Stream 2 to fill with that amount of gas, the speed of the pressure drop – virtually overnight – pointed to the possibility of a major leak rather than any attempt by the Russian side to restore the gas supply, according to several officials who are not authorized to speak publicly.
“Unlikely” leaks
“It seems extremely unlikely that the leaks on two different pipelines happened at the same time. Therefore, I think we should assume that it was intentional to create these leaks,” said Mateusz Kubiak, managing partner at Warsaw-based consultancy Esperis. He added that he did not believe that it would make sense for the West or Ukraine to sabotage the pipelines, “Especially as the gas flows were already stopped, in the case of Nord Stream 1, or had never started in the case of Nord Stream 2.”
A spokesperson for the European Commission said on Tuesday: “At this stage it is far too early to speculate on what the causes are. As I said, we have been informed by the member states concerned and the member states are looking into this matter. We will be in close contact with them .”
The Award on the EU’s benchmark TTF gas hub rose 20 percent to around 209 euros per megawatt hour on Wednesday – still well below August’s peak of 346 euros per MWh, but a sign of concern about future gas supplies.
Unlike oil spills, natural gas – also known as methane – bubbles up to the surface. However, there are climate consequences. It is highly flammable and has such a strong global warming effect that it has been likened to “CO2 on steroids.”
“As soon as the gaseous methane rises above the sea surface into the atmosphere, it contributes massively to the greenhouse effect,” says Sascha Müller-Kraenner, federal director of the NGO Environmental Action Germany.
“The significant pressure drop that has already occurred in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline gives reason to fear that this is a major accident and that significant amounts of the dangerous greenhouse gas methane have already leaked into the Baltic Sea,” says Müller-Kraenner.
Additional reporting by Karl Mathiesen and Hans von der Burchard.
This article has been updated with the latest gas hub price.