Dusseldorf, Stockholm Several European countries do not rule out an attack as the cause of the three leaks found in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 Baltic Sea pipelines. It was still unclear on Tuesday afternoon what exactly caused the leaks. As the Handelsblatt learned from German security circles, there is a lot to be said for targeted sabotage. Since the technical effort for such an approach is no small thing, the only possible author is a state actor, it said. The governments of Denmark and Poland also did not rule out a targeted disruption.
An unusually strong drop in pressure had already been detected in one of the pipelines on Monday night. The damage reports are meanwhile putting pressure on the European natural gas market. The European future rose on Tuesday by 11.5 percent to 193.50 euros. Although neither pipeline is currently delivering gas to Europe, the incidents have raised concerns about the safety of gas infrastructure in the EU.
“The simultaneous collapse of the three offshore pipelines of the Nord Stream system in a single day is an unprecedented event,” said the operating company Nord Stream on Tuesday. “It is not yet possible to estimate a timeframe for restoring the gas infrastructure.”
Poland suspects Russia
Specialists from different countries tried to clarify. The Polish government did not rule out that the leaks discovered by Danish authorities were due to a Russian provocation. The country is in a situation of high international tension, said Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz on Tuesday in Warsaw. “Unfortunately, our eastern neighbor is constantly pursuing an aggressive policy. If he is capable of an aggressive military policy in Ukraine, it is obvious that provocations cannot be ruled out, even in the sectors that are in Western Europe.”
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Russia also does not rule out sabotage or other reasons. “Now no variant can be ruled out,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov when asked whether sabotage could be the reason for the drop in pressure.
The Danish Prime Minister does not rule out a targeted act of sabotage.
(Photo: dpa)
The three leaks are some distance apart, said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday during a visit to Goleniow near Szczecin, Poland, where she attended the inauguration of the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline. It is therefore difficult to imagine that this is a coincidence. When asked by journalists to what extent it could be sabotage, she replied, according to the Danish broadcasters DR and TV2: “In any case, we cannot rule it out.” But it is still too early to draw any conclusions.
The head of the Danish energy authority, Kristoffer Böttzauw, was at a loss as to what could have caused the leaks. “It could have been a shipwreck, a design flaw or a deliberate act,” he told Danish radio, adding that the leaks, which occurred almost simultaneously, are “worrying”.
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The energy authority has therefore instructed the state-owned company Energinet, which operates the Danish energy infrastructure, to increase the level of readiness for the gas and electricity sectors to the second highest level. A higher level of vigilance is required, the agency said.
In Sweden, too, the authorities have not yet found out what caused the three leaks that led to a complete drop in pressure in the pipelines. A spokesman for the Swedish Maritime Authority did not want to speculate about the trigger for the leaks to the Handelsblatt. “We don’t know the cause yet,” he said.
Tomas Kåberger, former head of the Swedish Energy Agency and now professor of energy policy at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, does not believe in a disaster. “It is very unlikely that random events will result in both pipelines being damaged,” he told Swedish news agency TT.
Leak in Nord Stream pipelines: No impact on supply
The Danish authorities have asked ships to avoid the island of Bornholm as the leaks are close to the coast. Airplanes should also fly over the affected areas in the Baltic Sea at a height of at least one thousand meters. Denmark has sent a frigate to the area to monitor shipping traffic.
According to the German Environmental Aid (DUH), there is no danger to the environment. Natural gas consists largely of methane, a greenhouse gas that is extremely harmful to the climate. However, the majority of the methane that is now escaping is likely to be absorbed by the seawater, according to a DUH spokesman. Even a gas explosion under water would at best have local effects.
The Federal Network Agency assesses the consequences of the failure of the two pipelines for the German energy supply as negligible. At the beginning of September, Russia stopped supplying gas via the Nord Stream pipelines. The Russian state-owned company Gazprom has already stopped its deliveries through the pipeline with reference to an oil leak in the Portovaya compressor station.
“We are in the process of clarifying the situation here in exchange with the Federal Ministry of Economics and the authorities concerned. We currently do not know the causes of the pressure drop,” said a spokesman for the authority. “We do not see any effects on the security of supply.”
Federal Network Agency boss Klaus Müller did not want to comment on the rumors of targeted attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines on Tuesday afternoon. “The colleagues in Denmark and Sweden are in the process of finding out what happened,” said Müller at the Handelsblatt annual gas conference in Berlin. However, the incidents did not happen on German territory, that much is now known. We are in close contact with the responsible Danish and Swedish authorities.
The head of the Federal Network Agency warns that the path to independence from Russian gas should be accelerated.
(Photo: dpa)
“Whether it was an accident or not, it underlines that Germany needs to become more resilient,” Müller made clear. Now, in the middle of the crisis, is not the right time for this, “but at the right point one must urgently pause and ask the question of how one can become less dependent on fossil fuels and advance the energy transition more quickly.
The newer of the two pipelines, Nord Stream 2, plays no role in supply anyway because the pipe was never put into operation in response to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
With agency material
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