Nord Stream operator says 250m section of pipeline 'destroyed'
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Four leaks emerged on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea at the end of September.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
BERLIN - The operator of the Nord Stream pipeline said on Wednesday that a roughly 250m section was “destroyed”, after it carried out a probe following explosions at the end of September.
It said an initial survey had found manmade craters on the seabed near the damaged gas link.
“Craters with a depth of three to five metres were found on the seabed at a distance of about 248 metres from each other” along a Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the operator said in a statement.
“The section of the pipe between the craters is destroyed,” it said.
Operator Nord Stream AG is led by Russian gas giant Gazprom.
Four leaks emerged on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm at the end of September, with seismic institutes reporting that they had recorded two underwater explosions
While the leaks were in international waters, two of them were in the Danish exclusive economic zone and two of them in the Swedish Baltic Sea zone.
Swedish authorities announced in early October that they had conducted an underwater inspection of the site and that the inspection backed up suspicions of sabotage.
The Nord Stream group, which operates the twin Nord Stream 1 pipelines, has launched its own investigation and said on Wednesday it would “continue to analyse” data gathered from the site.
The pipelines, which connect Russia to Germany, have been at the centre of geopolitical tensions, as Russia cut gas supplies to Europe in suspected retaliation to Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Although they were not in operation when the leaks occurred, they both still contained gas which spewed up through the water and into the atmosphere.
Russia has blamed the pipeline blasts on the US, Britain, Ukraine and Poland, calling them “beneficiaries” of the explosions.
The US and its allies have rejected those allegations and suggest Russia may have been behind them. AFP, BLOOMBERG
