5/27/2023 0 Comments Sabotaging vault 101![]() ![]() Puck Nielsen said of possible sabotage that “technically speaking, this is not difficult. ![]() “Depending on the scale of the damage, the leaks could even mean a permanent closure of both lines,” analysts Henning Gloystein and Jason Bush wrote. Russia has halted flows on the 1,224-kilometer (760-mile) Nord Stream 1 pipeline during the war, while Germany prevented them from ever starting in the parallel Nord Stream 2. The extent of the damage means the Nord Stream pipelines are unlikely to be able to carry any gas to Europe this winter even if there was political will to bring them online, analysts at the Eurasia Group said. He said perhaps someone sought “to send a signal that something could happen to the Norwegian gas.” was committed to promoting European energy security.Īnders Puck Nielsen, a researcher with the Center for Maritime Operations at the Royal Danish Defence College, said the timing of the leaks was “conspicuous” given the ceremony for the Baltic Pipe. Blinken spoke with Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod about the apparent sabotage, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price, who reiterated the U.S. “We can clearly see that this is an act of sabotage, an act that probably means a next step of escalation in the situation that we are dealing with in Ukraine,” Morawiecki said. ![]() The leaks raised the stakes on whether energy infrastructure was being targeted and led to a small bump in natural gas prices. No official presented evidence of what caused the leaks, but with distrust of Russia running high, some feared Moscow sabotaged its own infrastructure out of spite or to warn that pipelines are vulnerable to attack. “An era that was marked by blackmail, threats and extortion.” "The era of Russian domination in the gas sphere is coming to an end," Morawiecki declared. ![]() Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the events “an act of sabotage." During a ceremony in northwestern Poland, Morawiecki, Denmark's Frederiksen and Polish President Andrzej Duda symbolically opened the valve of a yellow pipe belonging to the Baltic Pipe, a new system sending Norwegian gas across Denmark to Poland. “There is no question that the largest environmental impact of this is to the climate, because methane is a really potent greenhouse gas,” he said.Īccording to United Nations data, methane is 82.5 times worse for the climate than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, because it so effectively absorbs the heat of the sun. David Hastings, a retired chemical oceanographer in Gainesville, Florida, said much of the gas would rise through the sea and enter the atmosphere. The escaped natural gas is made up almost entirely of methane - the second biggest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide. In Sweden, acting Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said “it is probably a case of sabotage,” but not an attack on Sweden.Īndersson added that neighboring oil-rich Norway “has informed us about increased drone activity in the North Sea and the measures they have taken in connection with it.”įoreign Minister Ann Linde said that Sweden “(is) not ruling out any scenarios and we will not speculate about motive or actor.” “The causes of the incident will be clarified as a result of the investigation.” “Currently, it is not possible to estimate a timeframe for restoring the gas transport infrastructure,” a company statement said. The German operator of the pipelines, Nord Stream AG, said it’s preparing a survey to assess the damage. There was no indication when the gas would be turned off. Danish Energy Minister Dan Jørgensen said that “we cannot say how long the leak will go" on for as the gas has not been turned off. They created a foamy white area on the water's surface, images released by Denmark's military show. He said Denmark’s foreign intelligence service didn’t see any increased military threat against Denmark after the three leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. On Wednesday, Danish defense minister Morten Bødskov will travel to Brussels to discuss the leaks with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.ĭenmark’s Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said Sweden, Germany and Poland have been kept informed, and “we will inform and reach out to Russia in this case.” “There’s no doubt, this is not an earthquake,” Lund said. Seismic stations in Denmark, Norway and Finland also registered the explosions. A second, stronger blast northeast of the island that night was equivalent to a magnitude-2.3 earthquake. The first explosion was recorded early Monday southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, said Bjorn Lund, director of the Swedish National Seismic Network. The incident overshadowed the inauguration of a long-awaited pipeline that will bring Norwegian gas to Poland to bolster the continent’s energy independence from Moscow. ![]()
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