TASS-FACTBOX. On March 14, 2023 Russia circulated at the UN its correspondence with Germany, Denmark and Sweden on the investigation of the explosions at the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. TASS has assembled all of the main known facts about the pipelines and their destruction.
History of Nord Stream
In the 1990s, Russian gas giant Gazprom began exploring the options for building an export gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Central Europe, which would bypass Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and other Eastern European and Baltic transit countries.
In 2000, the European Commission approved a preliminary design of the pipeline, giving it the status of a trans-European network intended to ensure an uninterrupted energy supply for Europe.
To implement the project, the Swiss company North European Gas Pipeline Company was established, which in October 2006 changed its name to Nord Stream AG.
By 2022, Nord Stream was owned by several shareholders: Russia’s Gazprom (51% stake); Germany’s Wintershall Holding and E.on infrastructure (15.5% each); the Netherlands’ Gasunie (9%); and France’s Engie (9%).
The construction of the offshore section, consisting of two parallel lines, began in April 2010. This was made possible when five countries (Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany) issued respective permits for the gas pipeline to traverse their exclusive economic zones and/or territorial waters.
The first stage of the Nord Stream pipeline was launched on November 8, 2011. In the summer of 2012, it was brought to a design capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters per year. The construction of the second string of the gas pipeline began in May 2011 and it was put into operation on October 8, 2012.
Features of Nord Stream
Nord Stream connected Russia’s Baltic Sea coast, on the north shore of the Gulf of Finland near Vyborg in the Leningrad Region, with Germany’s Baltic Sea coast in the city of Lubmin, near Greifswald in northeastern Germany.
From Germany, gas could then be transported to Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, France and other countries through two branch pipelines (OPAL and NEL).
Gas was supplied to Nord Stream from Western Siberia through the existing pipelines of the Unified Gas Supply System of Russia and the new gas pipeline Gryazovets-Vyborg with a length of 917 km.
The last land facility before the offshore section is the Portovaya Compressor Station (Vyborg District, Leningrad Region). It provided gas transportation without additional compressor capacities on the German coast with the help of eight pumping turbines manufactured by Siemens.
The offshore section of the gas pipeline is 1,224 km long. The maximum depth at which the pipes are laid is 210 m. Nord Stream had a planned operational lifespan of at least 50 years.
The design capacity of the gas pipeline is 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year; each string has a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters. In 2021, Nord Stream delivered 59.2 billion cubic meters of gas to the EU (load: 107%), which was a repeat of the record figure posted in 2020. In total, Nord Stream accounted for 32% of Gazprom's entire volume of export deliveries to non-CIS countries.
Nord Stream 2
After the accident at Japan’s Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, European countries, primarily Germany, revised their plans for the development of nuclear energy and announced the closure of their own nuclear power plants.
Anticipating an increase in demand due to the planned decommissioning of nuclear power plants in Germany, in October 2012 the shareholders of Nord Stream AG began negotiations for the construction of two additional gas pipeline strings. The agreement was signed on September 4, 2015, as part of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.
To implement the project, a joint project company, Nord Stream 2, was incorporated in Switzerland (until October 2015 it was called New European Pipeline AG).
Initially, it was planned that Gazprom would hold a 51% stake in the company, while Germany’s E.ON and BASF/Wintershall, British-Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV would hold 10% each, and France’s Engie would have a 9% stake.
In August 2016, the decision to establish a joint venture was canceled due to objections by the Polish antimonopoly authority, which feared that the expansion of Nord Stream could lead to a restriction of competition in the gas market and thus would contravene EU law.
In 2017, Gazprom became the sole shareholder in Nord Stream 2, while European energy companies remained in the project as investors that provided half of its financing - €4.75 billion.
Construction on the gas pipeline began in 2018, but was interrupted after a year and a half. On December 20, 2019, US President Donald Trump signed into law the FY 2020 US defense budget, under which Washington imposed sanctions on companies involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream gas pipelines.
These enterprises were given 30 days to wind down their activities, after which they were threatened with the blocking of transactions under US jurisdiction. The purpose of the restrictions, according to the US administration, was to contain Russia and protect European energy security. At that time, the German government assessed the US sanctions against Nord Stream 2 as interference in European affairs.
Nevertheless, with the help of Russian vessels, both strings of the gas pipeline were completed by December 2021. Gas supplies through the pipeline did not commence, however, due to a delay in certification by the German side. On February 22, 2022, after Russia recognized the sovereignty of the people’s republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that he had ordered a halt to the certification of Nord Stream 2. As a result, the pipeline was never put into operation.
Features of Nord Stream 2
In general, Nord Stream 2 repeated the route of Nord Stream, but its starting point was located not at Vyborg, but rather at the Russian port of Ust-Luga on the south coast of the Gulf of Finland, also in the Leningrad Region.
The total capacity of the four strings of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines along the bottom of the Baltic Sea was to be 110 billion cubic meters of gas per year. For comparison, the throughput capacity of the main gas pipelines traversing Ukraine to supply the EU countries is also 110 billion cubic meters per year.
What is known about the explosions at the pipelines
On the night of September 26, 2022, a pressure drop on one of the two Nord Stream 2 lines was recorded from the onshore platform of Nord Stream 2 AG. The coast guards of Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia were notified. The pipeline operator’s press service clarified that the incident had occurred within Denmark’s exclusive economic zone, southeast of the island of Bornholm.
Later that day, the pressure dropped on both strings of Nord Stream 1. The Danish Energy Agency reported that a large amount of gas had entered the sea. Meanwhile, Swedish seismologists reported having registered two explosions on September 26 along the pipeline routes.
On September 28, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office opened a case concerning an act of international terrorism. On the same day, it was suggested in Germany that the pipes may become permanently unusable due to the explosions.
On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the explosion was an act of sabotage aimed at destroying pan-European energy infrastructure.
In mid-October, European media published underwater photographs of the damaged gas pipeline. A month after the explosions, specialists from Gazprom and Nord Stream were allowed to inspect the scene. The fact that sabotage had occurred was confirmed by the Swedish intelligence services on November 18. Traces of explosives were found at the site of the explosions.
On February 8, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article that claimed, citing anonymous sources, that US Navy divers had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the cover of the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022, and that the Norwegians then activated the bombs three months later. According to the journalist, the decision to conduct the operation was made by US President Joe Biden personally, following nine months of discussions with White House national security advisers.
The European Commission press service called the conclusions of Hersh’s investigation "speculation" and declined to comment on them. John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the White House National Security Council (NSC), said that there was "no grain of truth" in the investigation and declared that the United States was not involved in the explosions.
On February 16, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that Moscow had no doubts about US responsibility for the explosions at Nord Stream.
On February 21, at the request of Russia, a meeting was held in the UN Security Council on the topic of the demolition of the gas pipeline. However, no resolutions were adopted as a result.
On March 1-2, at a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the G20 countries in India, the Russian and Chinese sides sought to include a paragraph on the explosions at Nord Stream in the final declaration, but this initiative was rejected by Western countries.
On March 7, The New York Times reported, citing American officials, that a certain "pro-Ukrainian group" that acted without the knowledge of the US authorities could have committed the sabotage on the gas pipelines. The German publication Zeit came out with an article stating that German investigators had identified the vessel used by the saboteurs. The company that rented it allegedly belonged to Ukrainian citizens and was registered in Poland.
On March 8, the Times [of London] reported that European intelligence agencies were aware of the name of a "private sponsor" of the sabotage. While his identity is not being disclosed by the security services, he is described as a wealthy Ukrainian who purportedly has no links to President Vladimir Zelensky and his government.