The Swedish coastguard said Monday that bubbling caused by gas escaping from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea is no longer perceptible, but there is still a minor leak from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
“The largest filtration is no longer perceptible from the surface and the smallest has increased slightly”the coastguard said in a statement after flying over the area this Monday around 08:00 local time.
“So the smallest leak was about 30 meters in diameter,” the coastguard said. A spokesman for the operator of the submarine gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany, Nord Stream AG, had announced on Saturday the end of the Nord Stream 2 leaks, explaining that there was a balance between the gas and the pressure exerted by the water.
Capt. Jimmie Adamsson, a spokesman for the Swedish navy, told The Associated Press that an underwater rescue ship had been dispatched to the site of the leaks off Sweden and was supporting the Swedish coast guard, which is in charge of the job.
It was unclear when someone or something might go down into the pipes, be it divers or a submarine.
The coast guard said one of its ships, Amfritrite, was on site to monitor nearby shipping traffic. She added that bad weather is expected, which will complicate the situation.
The Russian oil company Gazprom, which owns 51% of the conglomerate, said on Monday that it is worked “to lower the pressure in track B of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline” by reducing the supply so that the structure can be safely examined. A total of four great escapeswhich have released tens of thousands of tons of methane, have affected the two gas pipelines off the Danish island of Bornholm since the beginning of last week.
The Swedish and Danish governments said several hundred pounds of explosives were involved. The emissions leaks occurred in international waters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the West of sabotaging Russian-built natural gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany, a charge the United States and its allies denied vehemently, who pointed out that Russia has been blackmailing Europe with reduced gas supplies for months.
The UN Security Council held a emergency meeting on Friday about the attacks on pipelines and Norwegian researchers released a map projecting that a large plume of methane from damaged pipelines will travel across large swaths of the Nordic region.
The Nord Stream gas pipelines have been at the center of geopolitical tensions since Russia cut gas supplies to Europe, in an alleged retaliation against Western sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although the pipelines are not currently operational, both contained gas prior to apparent sabotage that resulted in four leaks. A joint report from Denmark and Sweden published on Friday concluded that the leaks were caused by underwater explosions.
Both the United States and Russia denied any responsibility in the incident.
(with information from AFP and AP)
KEEP READING:
Nord Stream pipelines stopped leaking gas after sabotage
The hypothesis about the attack on Nord Stream and what would be Russia’s next sabotage
NATO denounced that the gas leaks in the Baltic Sea are “deliberate and irresponsible” sabotage
Source-www.infobae.com