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Wintershall Dea calls Nord Stream sabotage ‘shocking symbol of new energy reality’

Earlier, Germany’s Wintershall Dea said that it fully wrote off its 15.5% stake in the operator of Nord Stream

MOSCOW, February 23. /TASS/. Sabotage against the Nord Stream pipelines is a shocking symbol of the new European energy reality, Mario Mehren, Chief Executive Officer of Wintershall Dea, one of Europe’s major oil and gas companies, said on Thursday.

"We saw a dangerous act of sabotage against the Nord Stream pipelines - a shocking symbol of the new European energy reality," Mehren told reporters at an annual news conference.

Earlier, Germany’s Wintershall Dea said that it fully wrote off its 15.5% stake in the operator of Nord Stream. "Continuing to operate in Russia is not tenable. There is no turning-back. There is no waiting in hope of improvement. We are exiting Russia. This chapter of our history is closed," he said.

On January 17, 2023, Wintershall Dea announced its plans to leave Russia. The company was one of financial investors in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and acts as a shareholder in the Nord Stream gas pipeline operator with the 15.5% stake.

The Nord Stream AG company reported on September 27 that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage the day before. Swedish seismologists later reported that two explosions had been recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. The Swedish Prosecutor’s Office said on November 18 that the explosions were an act of sabotage. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office launched an investigation into the case as an attack of international terrorists.