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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#351

Post by daniel-cussen »

Gotta say since the British Petroleum scandal last decade, Big Oil has done a bang-up job of not having oil spills. And you know that's ecological, it was one of Standard Oil's priorities, to reduce waste. First to use burn gasoline to power their trains stedda dumping it in rivers. That sounds like it's not ecological but think it through it's got words that don't sound ecological like the word gasoline and the word burn, but think it through, it's very ecological. Oil spills are bad for the environment right? They now have cleanup costs. The companies ought to be more careful. And now they are! They are careful! In addition to all that it's oil they can sell, meaning for somebody to burn, carbon dioxide is pretty innocuous compared to all other oil derivatives. It's profits too! And then they do it, and then! Nobody says anything. Nobody thanks them. Nobody says "hey you did a pretty gosh darn good fucking job at selling oil."

Nobody says that.

I'm nobody, so I can say that.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#352

Post by lacker »

tgv wrote: post #213
jcranmer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). *…

None of these make much sense. It's pretty idle to speculate, and the list is most likely incomplete and inaccurate. It only feeds the trolls. Then again, this whole thread is full of fingerpointing without evidence. If HN can't contain itself, what won't the twitter and facebook, and –may God forget– Truth Social do?

None of these make much sense.

It does make sense. The pipelines were already shut down. So the tactical impact of blowing holes in the pipelines is to prevent them from being turned back on. Previously, it was possible that the EU would come to a negotiation with Russia to get gas back. Now, it's not possible, or at least much less possible.

That doesn't tell us who exactly blew holes in the pipeline. But it certainly makes sense as a maneuver in the geopolitical game, to take a certain set of options off the table.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#353

Post by hokkos »

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…

Russia don't want Uniper to sue Gazprom on international arbitrage for the missing gas volume and using the frozen russian asset to pay the penalties, so is creating those force majeure using plausible deniability like leaking turbine and now NS1/2

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#354

Post by tut-urut-utut »

gpderetta wrote: post #147
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every theory about conspiracy is a conspiracy theory. Fixed version: > The theory is that either the United States or some member of NATO conspired and sabotaged the pipeline so that Germany will not have the option of easing up on sanctions in order to purchase Russian Gas this winter.

Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy. I don't think Russia had interests in doing it, unless it is for some internal power play. edit: or plausible denial when they won't send gas to Europe this winter. But do they even need the deniability at this point?

> Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy.

I would prefer to assume governments are somewhat rational actors, who at least try to act in the interest of the own country.

In this case, the biggest loser from destroying NS1 and NS2 is Germany, second-biggest Russia and the rest of the Europe, sorted descending by the dependency on Russian gas.

As for the winners, we have the USA and Ukraine as biggest immediate winners, and indirectly and in the long-term India, China, Arab countries, ...

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#355

Post by odiroot »

kstenerud wrote: post #90

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. The Polish prime minister immediately called "sabotage" and fingered Russia, while everyone else is still saying "it could be sabotage but we need to investigate first". 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 lev…

> If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland.

That's sweet but I don't think my government has any capacity or means to that.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#356

Post by hokkos »

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?

Russia don't want Germany and others to sue Gazprom on international arbitrage for the missing gas volume contractualized on decades and using the frozen russian asset to pay the penalties, so is creating those force majeure using plausible deniability like leaking turbine and now NS1/2

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#357

Post by gpderetta »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #354
gpderetta wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy. I don't think Russia had interests in doing it, unless it is for some internal power play. edit: or plausible denial when they won't send gas to Europe this winter. But do they even need the deniability at this point?

> Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy. I would prefer to assume governments are somewhat rational actors, who at least try to act in the interest of the own country. In this case, the biggest loser from destroying NS1 and NS2 is Germany, second-biggest Russia and the rest of the Europe, sorted descending by the dependency on Russian gas. As for the winners, we have the USA and…

Ok, what if NATO collectively (or at least the affected members) decided to destroy the pipeline in a show of resolution?

Let's say secret negotiations are ongoing (it would be surprising if they weren't) with Russia regarding a winter ceasefire. Russia annexes the occupied regions to force the hand and be in a better position, then offers gas in exchange of no NATO military help during the ceasefire.

NATO rejects the offer and blows the pipeline to show it is off the table.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#358

Post by dongobongo »

dongobongo wrote: post #99
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…

Act of war by USA? (equivalent if done through ally)

Little bit of circumstantial evidence: https://seapowermagazine.org/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunit...

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#359

Post by eloisius »

yread wrote: post #211
jcranmer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). *…

One reason for Russia to sabotage it is as a show of force. "If we can hit our pipeline we can hit your pipeline, too". In unrelated news a brand new pipeline going from Norway to Poland through the Baltic sea opened just yesterday https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-polan... Talking about poor maintenance in a thread about registered underwater explosions sounds like FUD

Another reason would be to disincentivize another faction from deposing Putin. No secret that oligarchs have been dying left and right. Putin could have done this to remove the appeal of replacing him and going back to pre-war "normal" if they can't resume selling gas.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#360

Post by gruez »

Const-me wrote: post #274
jcranmer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). *…

> it would have to be extremely substandard to have failed this quickly Yes, but that’s assuming proper maintenance. Russia doesn’t have domestic technology to build or maintain complicated infrastructure like these undersea pipelines. International sanctions against Russia are rather wide. For instance, Halliburton (a US oil field service company) no longer operates in Russia: https://www.halliburton.com/en/about-us…

>It’s possible these sanctions affected the ability of Russians to maintain the pipeline, which might cause that thing to fail prematurely.

even assuming they were cut off the moment the invasions began, are pipelines really that fragile that they explode if they're not maintained for 6 months?

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