MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. Large sections of the Nord Stream gas transportation system in the Baltic Sea are filled with water, and repairs will require removing and replacing significant portions of the pipe, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller told Russia’s Channel One on Thursday.
"We have not been allowed to visit the accident site, but one should understand that judging by how quickly the pressure leaked from the pipelines, a total rupture of the pipe had occurred. What does it mean? It means that very large sections of the pipes, including Russia-bound ones, are now filled with seawater," he said.
"It is an unprecedented emergency situation, unprecedented terror attacks. Experts say that in order to restore operations after such a major attack, we will practically need to cut a large portion of the pipe and, in fact, to lay a new pipe," the official continued.
The situation is made worse by the situation involving the Siemens turbines for the Portovaya compressor station, the Gazprom chief added.
"As of today, there has not been a single operational turbine at the Portovaya compressor station, and, in this regard, the mission to revive Nord Stream 2 is further complicated by the need to de-facto build a new compressor station fitted with Russian-made turbines," he said, adding that so far Gazprom received no requests to restore the damaged pipes from its European partners.
Unprecedented damage to three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines was uncovered on September 26. Swedish seismologists recorded two explosions along the pipelines. Investigators from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) later opened a criminal case based on international terrorism charges over the blasts. It is currently impossible to figure out how long it will take to restore the pipelines to operational capacity.