Boiling in the open sea. In troubled circumstances, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany were suddenly hit by leaks in the Baltic Sea on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 September. The authorities of the various countries concerned have not found any explanations at this stage but do not exclude the hypothesis of sabotage. As a result of the war in Ukraine, the pipelines are not operational, but both are still full of gas.
Three ‘extremely rare’ and unexplained leaks
Three leaks were detected by the Swedish and Danish authorities. A first was identified on Monday on Nord Stream 2, then two others the next day on Nord Stream 1. They are located off the Danish island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea, at two points separated by more than 70 km: one in Swedish territorial waters, the other in Danish waters.
The official Danish Armed Forces Twitter account posted video and photos of the leaks.
Billeder fra F-16 af gaslækage i Østersøen. https://t.co/OgCDfcvTjG pic.twitter.com/D5wsoXvuda
— Forsvaret (@forsvaretdk) September 27, 2022
“Gas pipeline leaks are extremely rare”, commented in a press release the director of the Danish Energy Agency, Kristoffer Böttzauw. Rare enough to require authorities to “increase the level of vigilance”, he added. The alert level was raised to orange, the second highest. Navigation is prohibited within a radius of five nautical miles (about nine kilometers), as well as their overflight within a radius of one kilometer.
Concrete measures to increase the safety of the factories and installations of the gas pipeline will have to be introduced by the companies in the sector, in particular concerning access, surveillance and the proper maintenance of the installations. According to the authorities, the incidents have no consequences for the safety or health of residents of the neighboring Danish islands of Bornholm and Christiansø. The environmental impact should be local and limited, according to initial assessments.
“Deliberate acts”, according to Copenhagen
“It’s hard to imagine that it’s accidental,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday, not ruling out possible sabotage. On Tuesday evening, she claimed that these leaks were due to “deliberate acts” and that they should last “at least a week”.
The Russian authorities say “extremely concerned about the situation”. For its part, the operator of the pipelines, the Nord Stream consortium, dependent on the Russian giant Gazprom, said that it could not see or assess the damage, but recognized the exceptional nature of the situation. “An incident in which three pipes simultaneously experience difficulty on the same day is not ordinary,” a spokesperson told AFP.
The German authorities have not officially reacted, but a source close to the government, quoted by the German daily TagesspiegelDeclare that “everything speaks against a coincidence” and in favor of a “targeted attack”.
Underwater explosions heard
The Swedish National Seismic Network (SNSN) said on Tuesday that about 30 Swedish seismic activity measuring stations had recorded “two powerful underwater explosions”, at the locations of gas leaks on the Nord Stream pipeline. Data that feeds the hypothesis of sabotage.
The first detonation was picked up at 2:03 a.m. Monday morning and the second at 7:04 p.m. Monday evening, at the two places where leaks were reported at 1:52 p.m. and 8:41 p.m. respectively, SNSN director Björn Lund told Swedish public television. He said the area is rarely used by the army, which did not say it was carrying out exercises at the time. “like she usually does”.
kyiv denounces “a terrorist attack” planned by Moscow
The Ukrainian authorities have also reacted to the announcement of the leaks. For kyiv, they would be the result of a terrorist act piloted by Moscow. “The large-scale gas leak from Nord Stream 1 is nothing more than a planned terrorist attack by Russia and an act of aggression against the European Union,” said on Twitter the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak.
He also added that Russia wanted “destabilize the economic situation in Europe and sow panic before winter”, amid fears of an unprecedented energy crisis in the coming months. “The best answer to a tyrant (…) is tanks for Ukraine”, he wrote again on Twitter, calling for more Western arms deliveries to the Ukrainian army to face the troops in Moscow.
Gas pipelines at the heart of a geopolitical showdown
The two pipelines have been the subject of a geopolitical battle in recent months. Built in parallel to the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was intended to double the capacity for importing Russian gas into Germany. But its commissioning was suspended by Berlin, in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Gazprom has also gradually reduced the volumes of gas delivered by Nord Stream 1 until the complete closure of the pipeline at the end of August, blaming Western sanctions for delaying necessary repairs to the pipeline.