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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#231

Post by ajsnigrutin »

daneel_w wrote: post #33
cm2187 wrote: post #4

I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point, surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now. In fact doesn’t that mean that the pipeline will be flooded? Is that recoverable?

> "...surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now." The EU, through von der Leyen, has more or less made it clear that no more gas will ever be bought from Russia, not even if the war would suddenly end today with Russia retreating entirely from Ukraine's territory. The pipelines have been forfeited. People with geopolitical expertise ha…

If people get cold, and ursula doesn't want to negotiate, people will want to replace ursula... This makes it better for her (and many other eu governemnts) since negotiations wont bring back the gas.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#233

Post by joshuajill »

toss1 wrote: post #133
Sebb767 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RUptured Hard to believe, they have nothing to gain from this.

Russia has a LOT to gain from this. 1) They are running out of time on this war of aggression, and this will force gas price action NOW, not in December. They can sell gas through other pipelines to the EU if it accepts it. 2) Norway just TODAY inaugurated a new pipeline to the EU. Norway has warned about unaccounted-for drone activity around it's oil and gas fields. Russia is likely sending a message: "Nice pipeline…

US also has a precedent (from the other thread):

> We actually did do this 40 years ago. Reagan covertly blew up a Soviet gas pipeline supplying Europe in 1982, which was publicized in 2004 when the former Secretary of the Air Force boasted about it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r... ("Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets" (2004))

- "At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it."

- "In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes."

Possibly the first software supply-chain attack in history? Before the term even existed.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#234

Post by remus »

detaro wrote: post #206
remus wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ed: got this wrong, ignore! > Russia wants the taps capable of being turned ON at their discretion, not permanently broken. This hurts their bargaining position in a big way because they've just lost their biggest source of leverage against Germany. As I understand it this leak is in the new NordStream 2 pipeline and NordStrem 1 is unaffected, so they can still supply gas in to the EU through NS1.

You understand wrong.

Right you are, my mistake.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#235

Post by Kukumber »

zie wrote: post #212
Kukumber wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Sure the US companies would love to sell more LNG, but my understanding is they don't have enough ships to sell them, i.e. they are selling every lb they can already and they just can't get capacity to sell more to the EU, which makes it a much less rational decision to do this.

That's the thing, there is high demand, and they have supply, they also can sell them contracts to build more infrastructure to increase the rate at wich supply is delivered

Quickening the cut from gazprom is in their plan, considering: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gazprom-says-groups-...

We can all pretend and not see what's happening, but then you have this: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-gazprom-keep...

So the question is, why it is fine to let gas transit from Ukraine, is that to let them get their juicy royalties? so this sparks the question of corruption, who fuel and allow that corruption?

I do not pretend to know everything, but i read a lot and that's the best conclusion i can make, so far, there is clear evidence that the US doesn't want the EU to get their supply from elsewhere, Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is yet another evidence, wich is where EU wanted to get some of their supply

Worse, US's gas production is illegal in the EU, they don't allow the production within their soil, so it's clear evidence that they were forced to buy US's supply

I can also predict the future, the US will build nuclear power plants int the EU, instead of EU getting them from France, all started when the US built them for ukraine back in the days, the motive was clear

Wich is why France sold their companies to the US, and had to loose some due to some shaddy stuff (Alstom), it's clear current French government works with US's interests in mind, same for Ursula von der Leyen and her team of european bureaucrats

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#236

Post by ajsnigrutin »

belorn wrote: post #42
cm2187 wrote: post #4

I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point, surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now. In fact doesn’t that mean that the pipeline will be flooded? Is that recoverable?

Since there is no direct effect (the pipelines has been out of use for a long time), the effect must be indirect. As such we can't know and will likely never know for sure why it happened or by whom. It could be Russia. Russia is the prime suspect in 99% of the cases when there is a hostile military operation on Swedish/Danish water. It isn't like Russia were using the pipelines, and it possible that spinning this as…

Why would russia want that?

People in most of eu are getting angry at their governments and demand some sort of negotiations so the pipes get reopened before people start freezing to death in their homes.

With pipes destroyed, even if people get mad, most governments can now just say "there's nothing we can do".

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#237

Post by magicalhippo »

wongarsu wrote: post #20
jefftk wrote: post #3

More details: Although neither was in operation, both pipelines [Nordstream 1 and 2] still contained gas under pressure. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the leaks were caused by sabotage, while his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said it was “hard to imagine” they were a “coincidence”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/27/sweden-issues-warni...

Sabotage makes sense, but by whom? Surely Russia has no interest in sabotaging the pipelines that give them leverage over Europe. Without the pipelines, the whole "you lift the sanctions, we deliver natural gas" game is gone. Even if unlikely to happen, it would have been an important psychological and political factor over the winter. Meanwhile European powers don't seem to have an incentive. They would benefit from…

> That would leave Europe's non-Russian suppliers of natural gas: Norway and the US.

The Baltic Sea is relatively shallow[1], so commercial ROVs can easily get down to the pipe[2].

If you hedged a massive bet that say Norway will continue to deliver gas to the EU and Russia will still be cut off, then I guess it's possible a non-state actor could pull it off.

Sounds more like something out of a movie than anything realistic, but yeah...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Sea#/media/File:Ostseet...

[2]: https://www.deeptrekker.com/products/underwater-rov (random example)

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#238

Post by Gatsky »

jcranmer wrote: post #185
tpmx wrote: post #54

The Swedish national seismic network picked up two explosions within kilometers of the reported gas leak locations yesterday. The time of the first explosion: Yesterday, Monday morning at 02:03 am, second one Monday evening at 7:04pm (local time, CEST). The reports of the gas leaks came at 1:52pm and 8:41pm, respectively - by means of ships reporting bubbling at the surface level. One of the two events registered at…

Assuming the explosions are relevant, some possible causes, ordered somewhat (but not entirely) by my personal estimation of likelihood: * Ecoterrorists -- I discount this mostly on the basis that they would have claimed responsibility by now. * NATO sabotage -- this reduces strategic options for several EU countries (albeit a strategic option that isn't really being exercised and is almost universally disfavored). *…

What about a country currently buying cheap Russian gas who wants to keep it that way.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#239

Post by detaro »

nkingsy wrote: post #135
vbezhenar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Nice find! Was talking to a trumper who was blaming the invasion on the US having a weak president. Seems like the opposite if anything. Biden quarterbacked the maidan coup. Seeing him become president probably wasn’t a happy moment for Putin. Edit: these things are censored in google, Wikipedia etc by US state actors. We largely have to go on the words of people like Max Blumenthal and others who have been largely c…

> these things are censored in google

[citation needed] This was widely reported at the time and can still be trivially found.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#240

Post by ajsnigrutin »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #71
cm2187 wrote: post #4

I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point, surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now. In fact doesn’t that mean that the pipeline will be flooded? Is that recoverable?

Why don't you include the US and EU as the possible saboteurs? I mean we have the whole Gulf of Tonkin incident as precedence.

Yep, many internal pressures in EU for talks with russia (due to energy prices), and people wanting their poltiicians replaced, because they're the only ones standing between the people and cheap gas. On the other hand, US now can sell overpriced gas to EU while still hurting russia... if the pipes reopen, russia gets money, eu gets gas, US loses overpriced exports.

So yeah... us and eu would be my first suspects

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