Russia set to mothball damaged Nord Stream gas pipelines

• Russian gas exports outside ex-USSR almost halved last year.
• Nord Stream pipelines ruptured by blasts in September.
• Sources say both lines will be conserved to prevent degradation.

Russia’s broken undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines are due to be plugged and decommissioned, according to sources familiar with the project.

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, each consisting of two pipes, were built by Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom to transport 110 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea each year.

Three of the pipelines were ruptured in September by inexplicable blasts, and one of the Nord Stream 2 pipes remains intact.

Nevertheless, rising tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had already brought Nord Stream 1 to a halt, preventing its twin, which had been criticized by Washington and Kyiv for increasing Germany’s reliance on Russia, from ever coming online.

‘Buried’

Although Gazprom has stated that it is theoretically possible to rebuild the broken lines, two sources familiar with the preparations have stated that Moscow sees no possibility of relations with the West improving sufficiently in the near future for the pipes to be required.

Europe has substantially reduced its Russian energy imports in the last year, while state-controlled Gazprom’s (GAZP.MM) exports outside the former Soviet Union are set to nearly halve in 2022, reaching a post-Soviet low of 101 bcm.

According to one Russian source, the project was “buried” in Russia. Two others stated that, while there was no plan to repair the burst pipelines, they would be preserved for possible future reactivation.

Another individual acquainted with the program indicated that conservation is being considered by the parties.

This would almost certainly entail sealing the damaged ends and covering the pipes to avoid future corrosion from seawater.

According to one Russian source, if the seaborne liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States that Europe is using to balance some of its Russian supply becomes significantly more expensive, Europe may be willing to buy more from Russia.

The Russian Energy Ministry addressed questions to the pipeline operators, but neither they nor Gazprom responded.

Engie (ENGIE.PA), Gasunie (GSUNI.UL), and Wintershall DEA (WINT.UL) (BASFn.DE) – stakeholders in Nord Stream AG, the operator of Nord Stream 1 – declined to comment. A spokesperson for Germany’s E.ON (EONGn.DE), which also owns a stake in Nord Stream AG, said: “To our knowledge as a minority shareholder, no decision has been made, either for or against restoring the line.”

WHO BLEW UP THE PIPELINES?

Moscow has insisted, without offering evidence, that the bombs were the work of the West. The White House denounced as “complete fiction” a blog post last month by US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh saying that Washington was to blame.

Denmark, Germany, and Sweden are still conducting investigations.

Nord Stream 1 had already been shut down for maintenance in late August, but it was never resumed as Russia and the West disagreed about the repair of a pumping turbine amid Western sanctions.

The comparable Nord Stream 2 project, which was completed in September 2021 as tensions with Russia rose, fell into problems when German regulators refused to certify it. The initiative was subsequently halted just days before Moscow pushed its armed forces into Ukraine on February 24, last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed utilizing the intact Nord Stream 2 link to pump gas, but Germany, which is looking to reduce its dependency on Russia, rejected the notion. Poland has likewise ceased purchasing Russian gas.

Russia is now shipping just about 40 million cubic meters of pipeline gas per day to Europe via Sudzha on the Ukraine-Slovakia border.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow, which hopes to set up a gas hub in Turkey to replace the Baltic route, would no longer rely on the West as an energy partner.

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