Russia and EUHM Energy War Regeneration Variables. As the "main artery" of European energy, " Nord Stream-1" and " Nord Stream-2" were detected to explode and leak within 24 hours. When the cause of the incident has not yet been determined, there are many different opinions on who is behind the scenes, and there are many mysteries. And for Europe, this winter will be even harder. Because even if you are willing to restart the Nord Stream pipeline, it is unlikely that you will be imported into Russia's natural gas as you wish.
Aerial photos released by the Danish Ministry of Defense on September 27 show a leak point of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.
Three leaks a day
Natural gas leak occurred in the pipeline No. 1 and No. 2 of Beixi, which had been suspended, and a large amount of natural gas continued to flow out of the sea surface, churning out bubble circles with a diameter of hundreds of meters. On September 27 local time, the Danish Defense Forces released a video of the explosion in the Baltic area after the leak of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. The
leak was initially discovered on September 26. According to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) report on the same day, the shore-based dispatcher first reported that the pressure on a pipeline in "North Stream-2" dropped sharply, and the same happened in the two pipelines in "North Stream-1". These three were later confirmed to have a pipeline leakage.
In addition, the Swedish surveying station detected two strong underwater explosions in the same waters where natural gas leaked from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on September 26.
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are two parallel natural gas pipelines with a total length of more than 1,000 kilometers. They arrive from Russia through the territorial waters of Finland , Swedish , and Denmark to Germany.
As the "main artery" of European energy, Nord Stream No. 1 was completed and put into production in 2011 to supply natural gas to the entire Europe. Data shows that in 2021, the total volume of natural gas transmission in Beixi No. 1 reached 59.2 billion cubic meters, accounting for nearly 40% of the EU's imports of Russian natural gas that year.
html In early September, Gazpromium AG said that due to multiple equipment failures, Beixi No. 1 will stop gas supply until the troubleshooting is solved. Another gas pipeline, Beixi No. 2, was completed at the end of last year and is basically parallel to Beixi No. 1 pipeline, but has not yet been put into use.Although neither pipeline is currently in operation, the pipeline was still filled with natural gas before, and the large-scale leakage of methane gas may bring huge safety and environmental harm. Beixi Natural Gas Pipeline Company, the operator of the
Beixi No. 1 project, issued a statement on the 27th saying that the two subsea gas pipelines were damaged simultaneously within one day and the maintenance time could not be evaluated at present. The market is even more pessimistic. Gloistan, analysts at Eurasia Group, and Bush , said that depending on the severity of the pipeline damage, the two lines may even be closed permanently.
30 shot of the "North Stream-1" natural gas pipeline in Lubmin, Germany.
Natural disaster or man-made disaster
is an important natural gas pipeline that carries the focus of the energy game between Russia and Europe. In just one day, three "leak accidents" have occurred one after another, which naturally has attracted great attention from all parties. At present, the maritime departments in Denmark and Sweden have issued safety warnings for the leakage location, warning the passing ships not to approach the area where the incident occurred.
German Minister of Economic and Climate Protection Robert Habeck said the German government is convinced that the Nord Stream pipeline leak was not caused by natural occurrence or material aging, but a "targeted attack." The Prime Ministers of Sweden and Denmark said that the leakage of the Nord Stream pipeline "is obviously intentional."
Reuters quoted a person concerned about European security affairs as a report that to investigate the cause of the leakage of the Nord Stream pipeline, we need to ask "who will benefit from it."
German "Daily Mirror " points out that there are currently two possible versions of sabotage action. One of the versions is that Ukrainian may participate in the participation of Ukraine, because after the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is temporarily closed, Russian natural gas can only be transported to Germany and other places through the "Yamar-European" pipeline that transits Polish or the Ukrainian pipeline system. The second version is that Russia is conducting so-called "false flag action" as this may trigger additional uncertainty that will push up natural gas prices again, further deepening the European energy crisis.
European Commission President von der Leyen urged an investigation into the leak to determine the truth about the pipeline leakage. She stressed that any deliberate damage to Europe's energy infrastructure is unacceptable, and the EU will respond strongly to this.
Russia also called for an investigation into pipeline leakage as soon as possible. Kremlin spokesman Peskov said the incident was "very worried" and affected the energy security of the entire European continent. He said that the incident is not ruled out as deliberate destruction.
The well-known energy industry reporter Javier Blas quoted the comment from the well-known writer Fleming: "One was accidental, two were coincidental, and three were the enemy at work." At present, the operator of the Nord Stream Pipeline has not issued a specific explanation of the cause of the accident. It only confirmed that the pressure of both pipelines had a sharp drop in pressure. It also emphasized that the Beixi Natural Gas Pipeline suffered three damages in the same day, which is an unprecedented event. It is impossible to give a timetable for restoring the operation of natural gas transmission infrastructure.
As of now, the investigation has not been carried out. The head of the Danish Energy Agency said that the current natural gas leakage is very large and it may take a week to completely emptiate the natural gas in the pipeline.
European winter is not good
Meloni, who is expected to become Italy's first female prime minister, also promised voters on the 27th that he would strive to discuss the restart of the Nord Stream pipeline with Russia for the sake of winter heating. But soon after, the Nord Stream pipeline was at risk of scrapping.
At the same time, with the two pipelines in the Nord Stream leaking one after another, Russia only had one main pipeline to transport natural gas to Europe, but this pipeline passed through Ukraine, and uncertainty re-filled the European energy market.
Affected by this incident, the European natural gas futures price, which had fallen for four consecutive days, jumped by about 20% on September 27, and returned to the 200 euro/megawatt-hour mark again.
Handle , Director of the China Energy Policy Institute of Xiamen University, Lin Boqiang , said that considering that Beixi No. 1 has been suspended recently and Beixi No. 2 has not yet been put into use, it is expected that its impact on the current market will not be huge. But in the long run, if the conflict between Russia and Ukraine does not ease, the oil and gas relationship between Russia and the EU will likely be cut off in the future, so the impact on future expectations cannot be ignored.
NBC said that while neither pipeline was delivering gas to Europe at the time of the leak, the incident wiped out the remaining expectations that Europe might receive gas through Nord Stream 1 before winter.
Bloomberg believes that this is by far the clearest signal that Europe wants to survive this winter without Russia's large amount of natural gas. The oil pipeline has stopped functioning, but any hope that Moscow might reopen the pipeline at some point is now dashed.
At present, the European energy crisis has caused a huge impact on people's lives. Some Europeans have begun to grab coal and log wood to keep warm in order to survive the winter. In addition, European industrial and agricultural production also faces unprecedented difficulties and challenges. As the fuel prices for greenhouse production remain high, Denmark's largest tomato producer even announced that it will stop production of tomatoes and cucumbers this winter.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Fang Binnan Zhao Tianshu
