The operator of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, Nord Stream AG, announced Wednesday that, after an initial inspection, it has found man-made craters in the seabed near a pipeline damaged by the September explosions.
«Technogenic craters with a depth of 3 to 5 meters were found on the seabed at a distance of about 248 meters from each other. The section of the pipeline between the craters is destroyed and the dispersion radius of the pipeline fragments is at least 250 meters,» the company detailed in a statement.
Nord Stream AG chartered a vessel last week in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone in the Baltic Sea to begin the inspections, which lasted about three to five days. The company has stressed that it will continue to analyze the data after the monitoring.
The Norwegian government on Monday raised the alert level of the Norwegian Armed Forces to reinforce surveillance and prevention tasks in infrastructures and installations considered key after the explosions suffered in Nord Stream in September.
The «sabotage» began when a sharp pressure drop was detected in one of the two pipelines of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was not in use. Later, the operator of Nord Stream 1 reported a pressure drop on its two pipelines as well. Authorities eventually discovered a total of four leaks on both pipelines.
The pipelines in question run from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea and have similar capacity. Nord Stream 2 runs for 1,230 kilometers. It has been completed and filled with gas, but no gas has ever been imported through it, pending approval of its entry into service by the competent authority in Germany, the Federal Network Agency.
