Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/MOSCOW: Russia’s ruptured undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines were set to be sealed up and mothballed as there were no plans to repair and reactivate them, sources familiar with the plans told Reuters.
Harm Gas pipelines
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, each consisting of two gas pipes, were built by Russian state-controlled Gazprom to pump 110 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Three of the pipes ruptured by unexplained blasts in September 2022, and Nord Stream 2 pipes remain intact.
But soaring tussle between Moscow and the West over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought Nord Stream 1 to a standstill. It prevented its twin, criticized by Washington and Kyiv for raising Germany’s dependence on Russia, from ever coming online.
Gazprom said that it is technically possible to repair the ruptured lines. Still, two sources familiar with plans said Moscow saw little prospect of ties with the West correcting enough in the foreseeable future for the gas pipelines to be needed.
Europe drastically cut its energy imports from Russia over the previous year. The state-controlled Gazprom’s exports outside the ex-Soviet Union almost halved in 2022 to reach a post-Soviet low of 101 bcm.
One Russian source said that Russia saw the project as “buried.” Two others said there was no plan to repair the ruptured gas pipelines, but they would at least be conserved for possible reactivation.
