Not many facts here yet. We now know the pipeline was blown up so this isn't really an engineering problem anymore. Why not have some fun guessing who did it?
Ok, I get that. I do have to ask, would you consider the Iran Revolutionary Guard to be allied with Russia as well? They often act in contradiction to the government of Iran.
I wouldnt discount the current regime given their relationship with China. IMHO the balance of power in that hemisphere shifted from Europe to Asia long ago. Putin knows it and has done well playing both sides, like him or hate him he's been successful. I actually wouldnt be surprised to see the UN security council's "permanent" members reorganized to remove the UK and France in a few years for India and maybe the UAE or another.
As to the pipeline whodunit and why, international politics are a 1Md chess game with strategies that cover decades. This could be anything from terrorism to a political PR stunt, only history will tell us after the fact.
German security agencies are putting it out there that the pipelines will be unusable forever, which is complete nonsense.
There are tool pools on standby to do these repairs and in a water depth of about 80m it's really not that big a deal. They actually did hyperbaric welding on the installation of NS1 so very similar to the repair task.
If the will was there and sanctions removed the pipelines could be repaired quite quickly, recommissioning would be a pain though. Of course you'd have to find out who did it first or there wouldn't be much point repairing it.
If we're having a pool on who did it my money is on Poland.
One thing that I think must be true is that this was not a remote controlled detonation. That's difficult to do in water without being on sight. These charges were likely were on timers and placed over a month ago so guessing who did it based on most recent events would be wrong.
Here's some tech details I was not aware of. This is quite a high pressure design. A 100 barg design pressure for the entire pipeline's length is typical for most pipelines, but NS has 3 segments with different design pressures in each segment ranging from 220 barg at RU inlet that runs for 300 km. It then reduces to 200 barg for the next 375 km, finally dropping to 170 barg for the last 545 km. The pipe is 48" SAWL 485 (70ksi yield). Wall thicknesses of 26.8mm, 30.9mm, 34.6mm and 41mm are reported to have been used. It also is internally coated with a friction reducing epoxy.
Correction to one of my posts above.
Since it has 3 segments with different op pressures, pipeline pressure with no flow must result with a final pressure balancing out at less than the lowest segment's design pressure.
Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."
Well I wouldn't bet on Poland mainly because Sweden and Poland have a cable there too, it was shut down for maintenance during the explosions, they are going to measure it and check it next week.
My bet is still on Russia.
“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein
It may be the sabotage to the pipelines and the false reports that the entire pipeline is forever unusable were meant to moot the availability of russian gas to germany, and thus reduce the likelihood that the people would riot and demand a return to the use of russian gas. The riots could return if it were publicised that the pipes could be repaired. However, repairs do not change the fact that the entire pipeline is always vulnerable to damage from sabateurs.
"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick
If Russia didn't do it, then someone is playing them excellently at their own game.
But it's just as likely that it is them shooting themselves in the foot again with it causing a backfire which causes them more problems that it solves.
I think this is Putin's message to the west following the sham annexation votes: "you don't think I'm crazy enough to drop a nuke, eh? hold my beer." Giving teeth to his nuclear retaliation threat implied by the attack on annexed territory = attack on Russian soil rhetoric.
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