Explosions that rocked natural gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea before massive methane leaks “probably corresponded to an explosive charge of several hundred kilograms,” Denmark and Sweden wrote in a letter to the United Nations on Friday.
Norwegian researchers, meanwhile, published a map projecting that a huge plume of methane released by the damaged Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines will travel across large swathes of the Nordic region.
“We assume that the wind in the leak area blew the methane emissions north to the Finnish archipelago, then bends towards Sweden and Norway,” said Stephen Platt, a professor at the Norwegian Institute of Research aerial
The independent institution is part of the Integrated Carbon Observing System (ICOS), a European research alliance, which said in a report published on Friday that the methane emissions were confirmed by ground-based ICOS observations from several stations Sweden, Norway and Finland.
“Due to damage to the Nord Stream gas lines in the Baltic Sea, a huge amount of methane gas has been released into the atmosphere. The leak is estimated to equal the size of an entire year’s methane emissions for a city the size of Paris. or a country like Denmark,” the report said.
“At a later stage, we could confirm and quantify the amount of gas leaked,” he said.
A gas leak from Nord Stream 2 is seen in southern Sweden in this image taken from a Swedish Coast Guard aircraft on Wednesday. (Swedish Coast Guard/TT News Agency/Reuters)
Moscow has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the leaks and called for a comprehensive international investigation to assess the damage to the pipelines, which carry natural gas from Russia to Europe. Russia says it “looks like a terrorist attack, probably carried out at the state level.”
This week’s alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines has produced two methane leaks off Sweden, a large one observed above Nord Stream 1 and a smaller one above Nord Stream 2, and two leaks in Denmark.
Methane is a major component of natural gas. The ICOS report said methane is one of the strongest greenhouse gases. “Over a 100-year period, it warms the atmosphere about 30 times more than carbon dioxide,” he said.
The leak from Nord Stream 2 “has decreased, but is still ongoing,” the Swedish coast guard said. However, navigation warnings for ships were increased slightly to 13 kilometers from nine kilometers from the affected areas, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
The Danish and Swedish governments have described the disruptions as the result of “deliberate actions”.
Nordic seismologists recorded explosions before the leaks. A first explosion was recorded early Monday in the southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. A second, stronger explosion in the northeast of the island that night was the equivalent of a magnitude 2.3 earthquake.
Putin blames the leaks on the West
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of sabotaging gas pipelines built by Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany.
Speaking in Moscow on Friday at a ceremony to annex four regions of Ukraine to Russia, Putin said the “Anglo-Saxons” in the West had moved from sanctions to “terrorist attacks”, sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in what described as an attempt to “destroy the European energy infrastructure”.
He added that “those who have benefited have done so”, without naming a specific country.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden’s administration dismissed Putin’s claims as outlandish.
“We will not let Russia’s disinformation distract us and the world from its transparently fraudulent attempt to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said Friday.
European countries, which have suffered from rising energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have noted that it is Russia, not Europe, that is benefiting from chaos in energy markets and rising energy prices.
The United States has long opposed the two pipelines and has repeatedly urged Germany to stop them, saying they have increased Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and diminished its security.
Since the war in Ukraine began in late February, Russia has cut the supply of natural gas sent to Europe to heat homes, generate electricity and run factories. European leaders have accused Putin of using “energy blackmail” to divide them over their staunch support for Ukraine.
Russia halted gas flows through the 1,224-kilometer-long Nord Stream 1 earlier this month, blaming technical problems, while the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline had never opened.