Conspiracy Cafe

Update (0932ET):

Swedish broadcaster SVT reported that the Swedish National Seismic Network detected two underwater explosions near the Nord Stream pipeline system on Monday.

“One of the explosions had a magnitude of 2.3, and was registered at as many as 30 measuring stations in southern Sweden,” SVT said.

Bjorn Lund, a professor in seismology and director of the Swedish National Seismic Network, said these two seismic events were explosions.

Here’s a map of the three leaks on the Nord Stream pipeline system.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas said the size of the “gas leak is huge.”

So the question remains what (or who) caused the blasts?

Remember what President Biden said weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine:

“If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Update (0920ET):

Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbaldet quoted the Swedish Defense Force’s chief of operations, Michael Claesson, who said it’s not ruled out that there’s a connection to the gas leaks and Russia’s mobilization last week.

Claesson then told the paper that the incident was a “military matter.”

* * *

Update (0910ET):

Danish Defense Forces published the first images of the gas leaks from the Nord Stream pipeline system near the exclusive economic zone southeast of Bornholm island, according to the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbaldet.

The first images show a large surface area of gas bubbles in the Baltic Sea.

Another leak was reported by the Danish Defense Forces to be 1 kilometer in diameter on the surface water.

Update (0842ET):

Sweden’s government held a crisis management meeting with other public authorities over the damage to the Nord Stream pipeline system, Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbaldet said, citing comments from Foreign Minister Ann Linde.

Linde said Sweden may discuss the pipeline damage with Denmark later today.

Denmark is tightening security around all energy assets as some European officials speculate the NS pipeline system was sabotaged.

* * *

The plot thickens about what caused damage to three lines of the Nord Stream gas-pipeline system under the Baltic Sea to Europe as some European officials now suspect sabotage.

Nord Stream AG, the operator of the NS pipeline system, published a statement Tuesday that read, “the destruction that happened within one day at three lines of the Nord Stream pipeline system is unprecedented … and impossible now to estimate the timeframe for restoring operations of the gas shipment infrastructure.”

On Monday, NS2 gas pipeline and two NS1 lines reported rapid pressure drops, with gas leaks reported by Swedish and Danish authorities in the Baltic Sea near the exclusive economic zone southeast of Bornholm island.

Pressure drops in the NS gas-pipeline system could be the biggest signal that flows via NS1 might not resume this winter. Germany and surrounding countries are investigating the incident. NS2 cannot impact flows to the EU because the controversial idled conduit was never operational after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz canceled it after Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year.

Klaus Mueller, the president of the German energy network regulator, tweeted that the market situation remains “tense,” but Germany and the EU are no longer dependent on NS supplies.

Nord Stream AG issued an outage message that is active until Oct. 26, while the German economy ministry said it’s investigating the incident.

Dutch front-month gas, the European benchmark, was up nearly 10% at 190.50 euros per megawatt-hour on Tuesday morning.

CONTINUED AT LINK:

A reading from a German Centre for Georesearch seismograph on the Danish island of Bornholm shows two spikes, at 0003 and 1700 GMT, followed by a lower-level 'hissing' on the day when the Nord Stream 1 and 2 Baltic gas pipelines sprang leaks one after the other