Denmark reports leak in gas pipeline in Baltic Sea - dangerous for ship traffic - blasts were deliberate; Second gas pipeline damaged near Finland

[Emily]

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-germany-berlin-sweden-9ac152e4e4a195bb78dacd4d270ef9cb

Denmark reports leak in gas pipeline in Baltic Sea

BERLIN (AP) — Denmark’s maritime authority said Monday that a gas leak had been observed in a pipeline leading from Russia to Europe underneath the Baltic Sea and that there is a danger to ship traffic.
The operator of Nord Stream 2 confirmed that a leak in the pipeline had been detected southeast of the Danish island Bornholm in the Baltic Sea.
The pipeline runs 1,230 kilometers (764 miles) from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. It is completed and filled with gas, but gas has never been imported through it, dpa reported.
The cause of the detected leak wasn’t immediately clear.
The Danish energy agency said in a statement that the country’s maritime authority has issued a navigation warning and established a five-nautical mile prohibition zone around the pipeline “as it is dangerous for ship traffic.”...

[Pathfinder]

Swedish institute says underwater ‘blasts’ recorded prior to Nord Stream leaks

Two underwater blasts were recorded prior to the discovery of three leaks on the Nord Stream pipelines linking Russia and Europe, a Swedish seismological institute said Tuesday as the unexplained leaks raised suspicions of sabotage.

Published: 27 September 2022 17:05 CEST
...
The Swedish National Seismic Network recorded two “massive releases of energy” shortly prior to, and near the location of, the gas leaks off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm, Peter Schmidt, an Uppsala University seismologist, told news wire AFP.

“The first happened at 2:03am just southeast of Bornholm with a magnitude of 1.9. Then we also saw one at 7:04pm on Monday night, another event a little further north and that seems to have been a bit bigger. Our calculations show a magnitude of 2.3,” Schmidt said.

“With energy releases this big there isn’t much else than a blast that could cause it,” he added.
...

https://www.thelocal.dk/20220927/denmark-swedish-institute-says-blasts-recorded-prior-to/

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Gas leaks cause bubbling in Baltic Sea as Denmark probes ‘extraordinary situation’

Huge circles of foaming water appeared in the Baltic sea on Tuesday caused by gas leaks as Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Copenhagen was not ruling out sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Europe.

Published: 27 September 2022 15:22 CEST
...
The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, Scandinavian authorities said Tuesday, raising suspicions of sabotage.

The three gas leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were visible Tuesday in waters off Denmark with huge areas of bubbling spreading from 200 to 1,000 metres in diameter, the Danish military said.

“The biggest leak is causing bubbling over a good kilometre in diameter. The smallest is creating a circle about 200 metres” in diameter, the military wrote in a statement accompanying photographs of the leaks off the Danish island of Bornholm.

...

https://www.thelocal.com/20220927/danish-pm-refuses-to-rule-out-sabotage-after-leaks-in-russia-europe-gas-pipelines/

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nord-s...mage-1.6597069

Denmark says damage to Nord Stream pipeline in Baltic Sea was 'deliberate'
'This is not an earthquake,' says seismologist after 2 blasts damage pipeline
The Associated Press · Posted: Sep 27, 2022 9:21 AM ET | Last Updated: 7 minutes ago

Explosions rattled the Baltic Sea before unusual leaks were discovered on two natural gas pipelines running underwater from Russia to Germany, seismologists said Tuesday.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her government regarded the leaks as the results of "deliberate actions" by unknown perpetrators, while other European leaders and experts pointed to possible sabotage amid an energy standoff with Russia provoked by its war in Ukraine.

The first explosion was recorded early Monday southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, said Bjorn Lund, director of the Swedish National Seismic Network. A second, stronger blast northeast of the island that night was equivalent to a magnitude-2.3 earthquake. Seismic stations in Denmark, Norway and Finland also registered the explosions.

"There's no doubt, this is not an earthquake," Lund said.

Asked whether that constituted an attack on Denmark, Frederiksen replied that the leaks happened in international waters and "the answer is thus no."

Asked who could be responsible for the leaks, Frederiksen said "there is no information indicating who could be behind it."...

[Pathfinder]

Nord Stream leaks caused by deliberate actions, Denmark's prime minister says

Reuters

COPENHAGEN, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Leaks detected in the Nord Stream gas pipelines clearly were caused by deliberate actions and could not have been a result of accidents, Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday.

"It is now the clear assessment by authorities that these are deliberate actions. It was not an accident," Mette Frederiksen said at a press briefing in Copenhagen.

...

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nord-stream-leaks-caused-by-deliberate-actions-denmarks-prime-minister-says-2022-09-27/

[Emily]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KoGNEXztuo

Guardian News
Aerial footage of leak in Danish waters from Nord Stream 1 pipeline

203,195 views Sep 27, 2022 The Danish armed forces have released aerial footage showing a leak from the Russian-owned Nord Stream 1 pipeline in Swedish and Danish waters, shortly after a leak on the nearby Nord Stream 2 project was discovered.
...The leaks were located north-east of the Danish island Bornholm, the spokesperson said....

[Emily]

https://web.archive.org/web/20220928...Cj1bq26NorAAAA


ETA: Tweet is still there. He's persistently honest...a rarity. - E.
https://twitter.com/radeksikorski/st...Cj1bq26NorAAAA



Radek Sikorski MEP

@radeksikorski

Thank you, USA.

ETA: He removed his tweet yesterday. Swarms of people seem to have screen copies and were posting it back on his feed. - E

[Emily]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-29/record-methane-leak-flows-from-damaged-baltic-sea-pipelines/

Nord Stream gas leaks may be biggest ever, with warning of ‘large climate risk’

About this content

Karen McVeigh and Philip Oltermann
Wed 28 Sep 2022 13.02 EDT


‘Colossal amount’ of leaked methane, twice initial estimates, is equivalent to third of Denmark’s annual CO₂ emissions or 1.3m cars

Scientists fear methane erupting from the burst Nord Stream pipelines into the Baltic Sea could be one of the worst natural gas leaks ever and pose significant climate risks.

Neither of the two breached Nord Stream pipelines, which run between Russia and Germany, was operational, but both contained natural gas. This mostly consists of methane – a greenhouse gas that is the biggest cause of climate heating after carbon dioxide.

The extent of the leaks is still unclear but rough estimates by scientists, based on the volume of gas reportedly in one of the pipelines, vary between 100,000 and 350,000 tonnes of methane.

Jasmin Cooper, a research associate at Imperial College London’s department of chemical engineering, said a “lot of uncertainty” surrounded the leak.

“We know there are three explosions but we don’t know if there are three holes in the sides of the pipe or how big the breaks are,” said Cooper. “It’s difficult to know how much is reaching the surface. But it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of methane: quite a big volume being pumped into the atmosphere.”

Nord Stream 2, which was intended to increase the flow of gas from Russia to Germany, reportedly contained 300m cubic metres of gas when Berlin halted the certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine.

That volume alone would translate to 200,000 tonnes of methane, Cooper said. If it all escaped, it would exceed the 100,000 tonnes of methane vented by the Aliso Canyon blowout, the biggest gas leak in US history, which happened in California in 2015. Aliso had the warming equivalent of half a million cars.

“It has the potential to be one of the biggest gas leaks,” said Cooper. “The climate risks from the methane leak are quite large. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, 30 times stronger than CO₂ over 100 years and more than 80 times stronger over 20 years.”...

[Emily]

https://www.nilu.com/2022/09/methane-leaks-from-nord-stream-a-serious-pollution-event/

Methane leaks from Nord Stream: A serious pollution event

By: Christine Forsetlund Solbakken
Published: 29.09.2022

Updated 30 September: NILU scientists first estimated that the total methane leaks from the Nord Stream gas pipes could be at least 40 000 tons. New estimates as of 30 September brings that number up to at least 80 000 tons. That is more than four times the Norwegian national annual methane emission from the oil and gas industry.

Seismological data showed two explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines just off the Swedish / Danish coastline. The first occurred at 02:03 Monday 26 September, the second at 19:03 Monday evening. Gas bubbles were seen on the ocean surface soon after....

[Pathfinder]

Translation Google
Strong suspicion of gross sabotage in the Baltic Sea

Published October 6, 2022


The crime scene investigation that the Security Police conducted at the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines is now complete. The investigation has strengthened the suspicions of serious sabotage.


The security police have since this weekend carried out the crime scene investigation with the support of the Coast Guard, the Swedish Armed Forces and the Swedish Police Agency. It has been a very well-functioning collaboration.

After a crime scene investigation, the Security Police can state that there have been detonations at Nord Stream 1 and 2 in the Swedish economic zone, which have caused extensive damage to the gas pipelines.

During the crime scene investigation, certain seizures have been made. Within the framework of the preliminary investigation, the Security Police continuously undertakes various investigation measures. As part of the work, the seizures will now be reviewed and analyzed. The continued preliminary investigation must show whether someone can be served with suspicion and later prosecuted.

The security police are conducting the preliminary investigation into the incident at Nord Stream under the direction of prosecutors at the National Security Unit. After completing the crime scene investigation, the prosecutor has lifted the cordons at the scene.

The Prosecutor's Office's press release

The security police assess what happened in the Baltic Sea as very serious. The Security Police follows developments closely and takes the necessary measures based on the authority's mandate to protect Sweden and Sweden's security.



Published
October 6, 2022

https://sakerhetspolisen.se/ovriga-sidor/nyheter/nyheter/2022-10-06-starkt-misstanke-om-grovt-sabotage-i-ostersjon.html

[Mary Wilson]

Sweden seizes evidence at Nord Stream pipeline leak site in Baltic Sea

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines damaged by undersea explosions last week

Posted: Oct 06, 2022 9:17 AM ET
The Associated Press

Sweden's domestic security agency said Thursday that its preliminary investigation of leaks from two Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea "has strengthened the suspicions of serious sabotage" as the cause, and a prosecutor said evidence at the site has been seized.

The Swedish Security Service said the probe confirmed that "detonations" caused extensive damage to the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines last week. When the leaks off Sweden and Denmark first emerged, authorities had said that explosions were recorded in the area.

The agency, which said what happened in the Baltic Sea was "very serious," didn't give details about its investigation.

But in a separate statement, Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said "seizures have been made at the crime scene and these will now be investigated."

Ljungqvist, who led the preliminary investigation, did not identify the seized evidence. Ljungqvist said he had given "directives to temporarily block [the area] and carry out a crime scene investigation."

Huge methane discharge

The governments of Denmark and Sweden previously said they suspected that several hundred pounds of explosives were involved in carrying out a deliberate act of sabotage. The leaks from Nord Stream 1 and 2 discharged huge amounts of methane into the air. ...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/sweden-nord-stream-pipeline-1.6608026?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

[Emily]

Better consider how that might appear.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/05/politics/us-nord-stream-investigations-help

US considering offering to analyze underwater audio recordings to aid Nord Stream pipeline sabotage investigations

By Kylie Atwood and Sean Lyngaas, CNN

Updated 9:06 PM EDT, Wed October 5, 2022

Washington CNN —


The US is considering offering to use its most advanced underwater sound reading capabilities to analyze audio recordings from around the time of the Nord Stream gas pipelines’ apparent sabotage, according to two sources familiar with the matter...

[Emily]

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now
Seymour Hersh
Feb 8
...

Biden’s and Nuland’s indiscretion, if that is what it was, might have frustrated some of the planners. But it also created an opportunity. According to the source, some of the senior officials of the CIA determined that blowing up the pipeline “no longer could be considered a covert option because the President just announced that we knew how to do it.”

The plan to blow up Nord Stream 1 and 2 was suddenly downgraded from a covert operation requiring that Congress be informed to one that was deemed as a highly classified intelligence operation with U.S. military support. Under the law, the source explained, “There was no longer a legal requirement to report the operation to Congress. All they had to do now is just do it—but it still had to be secret. The Russians have superlative surveillance of the Baltic Sea.”

The Agency working group members had no direct contact with the White House, and were eager to find out if the President meant what he’d said—that is, if the mission was now a go. The source recalled, “Bill Burns comes back and says, ‘Do it.’”
...

Norway was the perfect place to base the mission.

In the past few years of East-West crisis, the U.S. military has vastly expanded its presence inside Norway, whose western border runs 1,400 miles along the north Atlantic Ocean and merges above the Arctic Circle with Russia. The Pentagon has created high paying jobs and contracts, amid some local controversy, by investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade and expand American Navy and Air Force facilities in Norway. The new works included, most importantly, an advanced synthetic aperture radar far up north that was capable of penetrating deep into Russia and came online just as the American intelligence community lost access to a series of long-range listening sites inside China....

[Emily]

Biden ‘knew of Ukrainian plan to attack Nord Stream’ three months before explosion

Washington Post reports that European intelligence service told CIA Ukrainian military was planning attack

Andrew Roth Tue 6 Jun 2023 13.23 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/06/biden-knew-of-plan-to-attack-nord-stream-three-months-before-explosion

[Emily]

Finland says 'outside activity' likely damaged gas pipeline, telecoms cable

By Anne Kauranen and Terje Solsvik
October 10, 202310:18 PM UTC
Updated ago

• Summary
• Companies

• Gas pipeline, telecoms cable connect Finland and Estonia
• Cause of the damage, and who did it, unclear - Finnish PM
• No threat to energy safety, telecommunications - Finnish PM
• European gas prices rise on the news

HELSINKI, Oct 10 (Reuters) - A subsea gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea have been damaged in what may have been a deliberate act, the Finnish government said on Tuesday.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO was sharing its information over the damage and stands ready to support the allies concerned. Finland joined the military alliance in April, while Estonia has been a member since 2004.
...

The damage to the gas pipeline was believed to have taken place in Finnish waters, while the telecoms cable breach was in Estonian waters, Finnish authorities said.

Prior to the war in Ukraine, some of the gas transported by the Balticconnector came via pipeline from neighbouring Russia, but Finland has since year stopped importing Russian pipeline gas.

Norwegian seismology institute Norsar said on Tuesday it had identified "a probable explosion" close to the location of the pipeline in the Baltic Sea at around the time of the outage early on Sunday, but said there was significant uncertainty in the data and that more analysis was required...
...

Finland last year leased a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) to receive liquefied natural gas (LNG), replacing supplies from Russia which were cut in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Much of Finland's LNG imports come from the United States, LSEG data shows...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/finnish-government-hold-news-conference-suspected-pipeline-leak-media-2023-10-10/

[Emily]

Oddly, this benefits the US LNG businesses because the loss of the pipeline makes Finland more dependent on their new floating terminal that is primarily supplied with US LNG.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231025044923/https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/anchor-chinese-container-vessel-caused-damage-balticconnector-gas-104260830

Anchor of Chinese container vessel caused damage to Balticconnector gas pipeline, Finnish police say

Finnish investigators say they believe an anchor of a Chinese container ship was dislodged and caused the damage to the undersea Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia on the Baltic Sea earlier this month

ByJARI TANNER Associated Press
October 24, 2023, 2:39 PM