Gas pipe leaks in the Baltic Sea near Denmark and Sweden possibly sabotage
On Monday, September 26, Danish shipping authorities reported three gas leaks in the North Stream 2 and North Stream 1 pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
The first leak was discovered on the North Stream 2 pipeline southeast of Dueodde on Bornholm, Denmark’s easternmost island. German authorities noted a significant drop in pressure while a large area of water surface bubbles above the leaking gas line was reported by Danish F16s. Later on Monday evening, two more leaks were reported by the Norwegian Maritime Administration on North Stream 1 located northeast of Bornholm. One of the leaks occurred in international waters even though it is recognized as the Danish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). An economic zone is a zone outside a country’s territorial waters where the neighboring coastal state has exclusive power to exploit natural resources.
North Stream 1 is currently closed – officially for maintenance – while North Stream 2 was never put into operation because sanctions against Russia were imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. Reported by the Danish Ministry of Energy, the leaks have no effect on the gas supply to Denmark or the rest of Europe.
However, the leaks have raised increasing suspicion because they took place on the day of the opening of another important gas pipeline from Norway to Poland – the Baltic Pipe – which aims to generate less European dependence on Russian gas.
According to the Danish news media DR, the Swedish seismologist, Björn Lund of SNSN, a unit that monitors the Swedish subway, says that the leak occurred due to an explosion corresponding to 2.3 on the Richter scale, which leaves him in no doubt that several explosions took place. This was supported by the Danish GEUS, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, which reported seismic waves on Sunday night while saying they did not resemble waves from an earthquake. Professor of geophysics at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Klaus Moesgaard, says that the seismic waves are similar to tremors from a World War II bomb and that seismologists can easily tell the difference between explosions and seismic waves from earthquakes.
At a threshold press conference on Tuesday evening, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said “it is the clear assessment of the Danish authorities that this is a deliberate act – not an accident”, but declined to comment further on who might be behind it. Correspondingly, Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said that it was probably sabotage.
Military researcher at the Royal Danish Defense College, Søren Nørby, acknowledged the possibility of Russia sending a message to Denmark to stop Ukrainian aid, and suggested that the explosions were carried out by drones or divers who placed explosives at the pipelines either recently or several years ago.
– “Denmark is in a difficult situation regarding the sea, and the infrastructure within must be monitored (…) The monitoring is quite terrible. It is easy to hide at sea and you can easily carry out such an operation without being detected (…) There are offshore wind turbines, internet cables and communication cables that you can imagine being a target.”
As of now, the area of the leak is being monitored by the Danish Defense Forces and other authorities, while a shipping ban within ten kilometers of the leaks, due to the risk of explosion and potential loss of buoyancy if sailing over leaking gas, has been imposed. Furthermore, air traffic within 1 kilometer of the insurgency gas is now prohibited. The general level of military alert has been raised to the second highest level – orange – which means that all energy companies should increase security levels at energy facilities and limit access as much as possible.
The pipelines are 1,224 kilometers long and consist of 199,755 pipe pieces of up to 12 m. Each standard pipe piece weighs 24 tons. and has an inner diameter of 1.15 m. A total of 2,424,00 t of steel has been used to build North Stream, which has a capacity of 55 billion. m3 of gas, enough to handle 26 million. households corresponding to 600 transports of liquid gas.
Sources: https://politiken.dk/indland/art8997094/Nord-Stream-Det-ved-vi-om-l%C3%A6kagerne-p%C3%A5-omstridt-r%C3%B8rledning-%E2%80%93 -and-that-we-don’t-know
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/dansk-ekspert-eksplosion-maalt-ved-bornholm-svarer-til-en-stoerre-bombe-fra-anden