Nord Stream: Russian gas pipelines to Europe suffer from mysterious leaks

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the main gas pipelines between Russia and Europe, caused major leaks within hours of each other, raising fears of deliberate sabotage

By Matthew Sparkes

Two key pipelines designed to deliver Russian gas to Europe developed leaks within hours of each other, sparking speculation of sabotage. The Nord Stream pipelines, which run under the Baltic Sea, have at times been at the center of diplomatic tensions surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. European Union leaders have previously accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of tapping energy supplies in response to tough sanctions from Europe and the United States.

The Danish Energy Agency said in a press release that two leaks were detected on Nord Stream 1 – one on Danish territory and one in Swedish – and one was also found on Nord Stream 2. The agency raised its alert level to orange, the second highest.

Kristoffer Böttzauw, director of the agency, said in a statement: “Ruptures of gas pipelines are extremely rare, and so we see reason to increase the level of preparedness following the incidents we have seen in recent years. 24 hours. We want to ensure thorough monitoring of Denmark’s critical infrastructure in order to strengthen the security of supply in the future.”

Reports suggest the leaks are big holesrather than small cracks.

A source of European security Told Reuters there were indications that the leaks had been caused by “deliberate damage”. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, “It’s hard to imagine that these are coincidences. We cannot exclude sabotage.

Denmark has imposed a no-go zone around the leaks, prohibiting all ships and aircraft from approaching within 5 nautical miles. It says there is a risk of ignition and ships could lose buoyancy due to escaping gas.

The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway said in a statement on Monday that it had recently received a number of warnings from oil and gas companies regarding drones and unidentified aircraft flying near offshore facilities. The organization also recalled that there is an exclusion zone with a radius of 500 meters around all offshore oil and gas installations, and it is said that encroaching on them might be punishable by law. But he said he did not want to speculate on what caused the Nord Stream leaks.

Anthony King at the University of Warwick, UK, claims the development is odd and that sabotage and accident were the two possibilities.

“The Russians have the ability to pull off something like this – and they regularly threaten internet fibers in the Atlantic to show that they could cut them if necessary. So it could be the Russians,” he says. “But I don’t see what they would gain from it – they want to sell gas, it may indeed be an accident.

A spokesperson for the German GFZ Research Center for Geosciences said new scientist that it detected two large and distinct peaks of seismic activity under the Baltic Sea on Monday, one at 00:03 UTC and the other at 17:03 UTC. This was followed by a “much louder” than usual seismic noise than before the spikes. “We have no information on the cause of the spikes and noise,” they say.

Each of the two pipelines concerned in fact comprises two pipelines, made up of around 100,000 sections of 12 meters in length each. None of the pipelines was in service when the leaks were discovered, but they all still contained gas under pressure. Network Environmental Impact Documents would have pointed pipes 26.8 millimeters thick and covered with anti-corrosion material and reinforced concrete.

Nord Stream 2 had not yet entered normal service, but was filled with 177 million cubic meters of natural gas. Scientists are divided on the extent of the effect of this gas leak on the atmosphere and on climate change.

Joe von Fischer at Colorado State University says the effect of the leaks on atmospheric methane levels would be small because the methane will convert to carbon dioxide, which is less potent as a greenhouse gas, as it rises in the water . “When methane is released at the bottom of a deep body of water, almost all of it is oxidized by methanotrophic bacteria in the water column,” he says.

But Grant Allen at the University of Manchester, UK, says the amount of gas rising could be a game-changer. “My intuition, and it is only intuition, is that these leaks are so large that a column of bubbles rising to the surface is so pure and so intense that nature will have no chance of acting on it. .” he says. “You can see how violently it comes out. I suspect this event will be over in a few hours.

Allen estimates that the contents of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline alone would create the equivalent methane emissions of 124,000 average UK homes each year.

Pipelines are not the first pieces of energy infrastructure to be affected since Russia invaded Ukraine. The fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – the largest nuclear power plant in Europe – and Chernobyl have prompted experts to warn of the prospect of an accidental release of radioactive materials in recent months.