Baltic gas pipeline leaks stop once... Investigation and recovery of the cause is a 'difficult'

It appears that all gas leaks in the Northstream, an undersea natural gas pipeline connecting Russia to Europe, have stopped.

The Danish Energy Agency announced on its Twitter account on the 2nd (local time) that "Norststream AG, the gas pipeline operator, has informed us that the pressure in the gas pipeline at Nordstream-1 appears to have stabilized."

He added that this means that the leak of Northstream-1 is over.

After the Danish Energy Agency announced that the leak had stopped the day before, the Nordstream-1 leak, which is known to be more severely damaged, also stopped leaking.

Northstream AG spokesman Ulrich Risek told AFP that "the gas pipe is almost blocked by the hydraulic pressure, so the gas inside the pipe is not coming out."

As the gas leaked, the atmospheric pressure inside the gas pipe dropped, which caused an equilibrium of pressure between the surrounding seawater and the gas, which means that the leak temporarily stopped.

"The conclusion is that there is still gas in the gas pipe," said Risek, but he did not immediately respond to the amount of gas remaining.

Although the gas leak has stopped, it will be some time before the cause of the accident is determined.

This is because, due to the nature of the submarine gas pipeline, it is practically difficult to access the site due to safety issues.

The leak point is in the waters of Denmark and Sweden, which are member countries of the European Union (EU), but it is difficult to determine who and how to investigate, given that Gazprom, a Russian state-owned company, is the largest shareholder of AG, the operator of Nordstream.

This is because both Russia and the West are unanimous in the need for an investigation, but are pointing arrows at each other over the cause of the accident.

The same goes for repairing gas pipelines.

Gazprom's spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said in a video explanation to the UN Security Council on the 30th of last month, local time, that it was impossible to set a time for the completion of the restoration as there had not been any leaks like this one before.

Earlier, on the 26th and 27th of last month, three Northstream-1 and Northstream-2 gas pipelines passing through the seabed in Denmark and Sweden's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) were identified as leaking points presumed to have been caused by large explosions, and then the leaks were confirmed. As one additional branch was found, concerns about safety accidents and environmental damage have increased.