European Union member states have implemented a small no-fly zone and restricted shipping as a result of two abrupt and inexplicable leaks in two Russian gas pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea.

The Nord Stream pipelines have been focal points in an intensifying energy conflict between Moscow and European cities that has wreaked havoc on the biggest Western economies, driven up gas prices, and triggered a search for alternate energy sources.

Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, 

 that the leaks were the result of sabotage, while Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, stated it was “hard to imagine” they were a “coincidence”.

“Today we faced an act of sabotage, we don’t know all the details of what happened, but we see clearly that it’s an act of sabotage, related to the next step of escalation of the situation in Ukraine,” Morawiecki said.

It was highly "rare" for such a string of leaks to occur in the same approximate location, 

 to Kathryn Porter, an energy specialist at Watt-Logic, an independent energy consultancy with headquarters in the United Kingdom.

“For pipes to fail, normally you either have something like corrosion or fatigue, but Nord Stream 2 is a brand new pipe. And you could look at maybe some sort of construction problem, such as faulty welding, but on the other hand, there are now issues with Nord Stream 1 and that’s been operating since 2012. 

“So it is very difficult to come up with a rational explanation for these things.”

Any lingering hopes that Europe could get gas through Nord Stream 1 before winter is gone, 

even though neither pipeline was pumping gas to Europe when the breaches were discovered amid the controversy over the war in Ukraine.

The brand-new Nord Stream 2 pipeline had not yet begun receiving commercial traffic. 

 of the breaches, gas prices across Europe increased, with the standard Dutch price for October rising by roughly 10% on Tuesday.

According to Josep Borrell, the European Union shares the assessment expressed on Tuesday by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden that sabotage was likely to blame for the leaks discovered on Monday in the Nord Stream pipelines. The EU has neither identified a probable offender or offered a theory as to why it occurred.

 that "Any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response,"

The "Sabotaged" Nord Stream Pipelines

0 Comments