This line caught my eye. If it's not in use why is it pressurized with natural gas? I can understand the need to keep it pressurized to keep the sea out and to monitor condition. But why use natural gas and not air or more something inert for a long term layup? The conspiracy theorist in me says they were using the pipeline.
It was used initially, but when the contracts were cancelled, it was shutdown, and valves shut.
Rather difficult to purge a subsea pipeline filled with CH4 (100+ Barg) with air without enormous risk.
More details out, looks like the pressure fell from 105 bar to 7 bar overnight. That's a big leak. That would be ambient pressure at 240 feet of water depth.
Its a _large_ leak, increased emergency preparedness in Denmark, but the leak is in international seas South East of the Danish island Bornholm. Newspaper reports a leak in both Nordstream 1 & 2.
They were on the verge of commencing operations, so it was filled to full operating pressure. With no flow, it would be at full op pressure for its entire length.
If this is in the Danish sector, that segment might not have ever been actually started up. I only heard that they were flowing to Germany for a short time.
I don't know if it was actually hydrostatically tested or not. A leak before operation could suggest that it was not.
Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."
It's the strange little island (Bornholm) that is Danish territory.
Think NS 1 is quite close.
Could be sabotage or a ship anchor dragging across both of them...
Actually there are two Nordstream pipelines plus the third Nordstream 2 pipeline which is a little confusing sometimes, but sounds like all three have ruptured.
Sub sea repair for something like this is far from easy once seawater gets in.
Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
All 3 damaged is kind of just a little tiny bit suspicious.
I wouldn't generally expect they would have been laid so close together such that a fault in one would damage the others. At 250m depth, they would be around 1000ft apart or so.
Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."
My guess is that us/uk are reminding the bear that subs can prevent the operation of gas pipelines, and a swift act by a few divers can put an end to the use of russian gas. Perhaps this is the "tool" the EU decided to use after the "wrong" PM was elected in Italy.
"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick
I suspect it's more likely that Russia has done it.For financial reasons and both operation companies are likely to go insolvent soon and as both are European then the assets can be sold.
Wouldn't take much to bend one into Finland and one into the baltics.
It's pretty obvious that Russia thinks neither will come online again with Russian gas sales.
With that many bubbles a submarine might have a hard time staying buoyant. There was a semi-sub drill rig that sank off Indonesia some time back. They had a blow out and there was so much gas in the water it lost buoyancy.
Now measurements from the Swedish national seismic network show that two clear explosions were measured next to the gas lines during Monday.
One of them had a magnitude of 2.3, similar to a perceptible earthquake, and was registered at measuring stations throughout the country.
- You can clearly see how the waves bounce from the bottom to the surface.
There is no doubt that it was a blast or explosion. We even had a station in Kalix that picked this up, says Björn Lund, who is a lecturer in seismology and director of the Swedish national seismic network, which measures Swedish earthquakes and explosions.
Same area
The first explosion was recorded at 02:03 on the night of Monday and the second at 19:04 on Monday evening.
The warnings about the gas leaks came from the Maritime Administration at 13.52 and 20.41 on Monday, respectively, after ships detected bubbles on the surface.
SVT has obtained the coordinates of the measured explosions and they are in the same area where the gas leaks were recorded.
- It is very close to the coordinates registered by the Swedish Maritime Administration.
As for the most powerful explosion, it is a distance of six kilometers, says Björn Lund, who believes that their measurements usually have a margin of error of two to three kilometers.
I wouldn't be surprised if it were done from inside the pipeline. An ROV or pig with a shaped charge could do it. I guess there was no flow to push a pig and that's a long ways for an ROV to travel. Just speculating.
