On Friday, September 30, an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council will be held in connection with sabotage against the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, world news media report.
On Tuesday morning, September 27, Gazprom’s subsidiary Nord Stream AG announced unprecedented damage to the company’s two gas pipelines that run along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to Germany – Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2.
“The destruction that occurred on the same day simultaneously on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system is unprecedented,” the report says. “It is not yet possible to estimate the timeframe for restoring the efficiency of the gas transmission infrastructure”.
At the same time, seismologists in Denmark and Sweden recorded powerful explosions in areas where there were leaks from the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
The reasons for the unprecedented state of emergency with the Nord Streams are yet to be sorted out. It is difficult to assess the total economic damage. It is not clear at whose expense the pipes will be repaired and how long it will take. Europe is already predicting a halt in production and extremely high gas prices. And in the EU they fear that they will lose gas pipelines forever, RIA Novosti notes.
Leaks occurred immediately on three lines of Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2. This came as a surprise to both Russia and the EU. Both sides talk about deliberate actions and sabotage.
The capacity of all lines is 110 billion cubic meters. And the cost of blue fuel in Europe now exceeds $2,000 per thousand cubic meters. And although both pipelines were not in use at the time of the accident, hundreds of millions of cubic meters of process gas accumulated in them.
Meanwhile, Europe is already preparing for the worst. According to Tagesspiegel, citing its own government sources, the authorities are afraid that the three pipes of Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 will forever remain unusable.
Now gas supplies to Europe go exclusively through the territory of Ukraine (about 42 million cubic meters per day) and through the Turkish Stream pipeline. The Europeans could use the Nord Stream to smooth out the geopolitical struggle and receive blue fuel in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Now Europe has lost the opportunity to resolve the issue and restore normal gas supplies from Russia. Hundreds of European plants in energy-intensive industries are at risk. Metallurgy and fertilizer production will be under high pressure – 70 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer production capacity is already idle.
Thus, the energy crisis in Europe will enter a new acute phase in winter. Russia, in turn, is deprived of potential income from gas supplies for an indefinite period. The Russian Foreign Ministry also said: Moscow is ready to investigate the accidents at the Nord Streams together with Brussels.
Source: Nebit-Gaz