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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — 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. And other European
leaders and experts pointed to possible sabotage amid an energy standoff with
Russia provoked by the 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 the incident 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.”
On
Wednesday, Danish defense minister Morten Bødskov will travel to Brussels to
meet with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg to talk about the gas leaks.
Denmark’s
Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said other countries in the region — Sweden,
Germany and Poland — have been kept informed and “we will inform and reach out
to Russia in this case.”
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,
which are filled with natural gas but not delivering the fuel to Europe,
overshadowed the inauguration of a long-awaited pipeline that will bring
Norwegian gas to Poland to bolster the continent’s energy independence from
Moscow.
The gas
leaks created a foamy white area on the water’s surface, images released by
Denmark’s military show. 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. There was no indication when the gas would be turned off.
Polish Prime
Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the events “an act of sabotage.” During a
ceremony near Goleniow, 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 and the Baltic Sea to Poland.
“The era of
Russian domination in the gas sphere is coming to an end,” Morawiecki declared.
“An era that was marked by blackmail, threats and extortion.”
The escaped
natural gas is made up almost entirely of methane. Methane is the second
biggest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide. David Hastings, a
retired chemical oceanographer in Gainesville, Florida, said much of the gas
would rise through the ocean and enter the atmosphere. “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.
According to
the most recent report from the IPCC earlier this year, methane is 82.5 times
worse for the climate than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame, because it
so effectively absorbs the heat of the sun.
No official
presented evidence of what caused the Nord Stream problems, 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. The leaks in
international waters off the coast of Denmark and Sweden raised the stakes on
whether energy infrastructure was being targeted and led to a small bump in
natural gas prices.
“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.
U.S. Secretary
of State Antony Blinken told reporters that American officials have not confirmed
sabotage or an attack.
Anders 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. He said perhaps someone sought “to send a
signal that something could happen to the Norwegian gas.”
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. 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.
“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.
They noted
that undersea pipelines are designed in a way that they are not accidentally
damaged and leaks are rare.
Puck Nielsen
said of possible sabotage that “technically speaking, this is not difficult. It
just requires a boat. It requires some divers that know how to handle explosive
devices.”
“But I think
if we look at who would actually benefit from disturbances, more chaos on the
gas market in Europe, I think there’s basically only one actor right now that
actually benefits from more uncertainty, and that is Russia,” he said.
Asked if the
leaks may have been caused by sabotage, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “no
version could be excluded.”
“This is an
unprecedented situation that requires an urgent investigation. We are extremely
worried by this news,” he said in a conference call with reporters.
The Danish
and Swedish maritime authorities issued navigation warnings. On the eastern
coast of Bornholm, the Danish Emergency Management Agency installed equipment
that measures the concentration of gas in the air. Local police said
“authorities assess that there are no safety or health risks.”
Denmark also
established a prohibited area to ensure that ships avoid the leaks. Ships may
lose buoyancy, and there may also be a risk of ignition above the water and in
the air, authorities said.
The Nord
Stream pipelines have been at the center of an energy clash between Europe and
Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in late February. Plunging Russian gas
supplies have caused prices to soar, pressuring governments to help ease the
pain of sky-high energy bills for households and businesses as winter nears.
The crisis also has raised fears of rationing and recession.
The Baltic
Pipe is a prominent element in the European Union’s search for energy security
and is to start bringing Norwegian gas through Denmark and along the Baltic Sea
to Poland on Oct. 1.
Simone
Tagliapietra, an energy expert with the Bruegel think tank in Brussels,
speculated that the leaks could have been caused by Russian sabotage or
anti-Russian sabotage.
One possibility
is Russia signaling it “is breaking forever with Western Europe and Germany” as
Poland inaugurates its pipeline with Norway, he said.
“In any
case, this is a stark reminder of the exposure to risk of Europe’s gas
infrastructure,” Tagliapietra said.
Andrzej
Sikora, the head of the Energy Studies Institute think tank in Poland, said he
has been warning of the possibility of attacks on pipeline infrastructure since
the construction of Nord Stream 1 in 2010. He has been urging steps to ensure
the security of the Baltic Pipe, which at one point crosses paths with both
Nord Stream pipelines.
Olsen
reported from Copenhagen, Denmark, and Keyton from Stockholm. Associated Press
writers Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Adam Schreck in Kyiv, Ukraine, Kirsten Grieshaber
in Berlin, and David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed.