An explosion damaged this Friday the Amber Grid gas pipeline, which connects the Baltic countries to Poland, in the north of Lithuania, without causing any victims, announced the local operator on its site.
“Around 5 p.m. an explosion occurred on the Amber Grid gas pipeline in the Pasvalys district.
According to the first data, no one was injured, ”according to the press release from the Amber Grid group.
The explosion of one of the two pipes of the gas pipeline, the damaged section of which was built in 1978, occurred far from residential buildings, about five kilometers from Pasvalys, near the village of Valakeliai, according to the operator.
A fire official said "the fire, which was about 50 meters high at its peak, had begun to wane".
“No malicious action” observed, Lithuania cut off from Russian gas since June
Nemunas Biknius, the CEO of Amber Grid, said in the statement that his group had "immediately started to investigate the circumstances of the incident and to ensure the supply of gas to consumers".
"In the immediate future, we have not observed any malicious action" linked to this explosion, but "the investigation will cover all possible scenarios", he added to journalists.
The group said the gas pipeline where the fire broke out was used to supply gas to northern Lithuania and transport it to neighboring Latvia.
Since June 2022, Lithuania has prohibited itself from importing Russian gas, in the context of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
After regaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Lithuania was heavily dependent on Russian gas, until the commissioning in 2014 of an LNG terminal in Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea, then in 2022 that of a new gas pipeline linking the three Baltic States to the European gas network, via Poland.
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