The Swedish coast guard says another leak has been detected in the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, bringing the total to four. Coast guard spokesperson Mattias Lindholm said the leaks are in the same sector, the Guardian reports. Two more leaks have been found in Danish waters. Leaks in the pipelines, built to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany, were first detected Monday. Seismologists in Sweden and Denmark said powerful explosions were detected, suggesting the leaks were caused by sabotage. The pipelines are owned partly by Russian state-owned company Gazprom and European energy companies.
The pipelines were full of gas but not operational when gas started leaking into the Baltic Sea—Russia halted deliveries through Nord Stream 1 earlier this month and Nord Stream 2, completed a year ago, never entered service. Experts believe both pipelines might now be unusable. Russia and Western countries have traded blame over the damage, with Russia suggesting the US sabotaged the pipelines and some European leaders saying Moscow was responsible. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that the leaks look "like an act of terrorism, possibly on a state level," Reuters reports. Sources tell CNN that Russian Navy support ships were seen in the vicinity of the leaks Monday and Tuesday, though it's not clear whether they had anything to do with the explosions.
While the US has been reluctant to point the finger at Russia, some experts say Moscow is the most likely suspect, since it will benefit from higher energy prices and more economic turmoil in Europe, the AP reports. Experts say the leaks could release an "unprecedented" amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change, reports CNN. The gas makes up around 90% of 100,000 metric tons of natural gas currently on the surface of the Baltic sea. Analysts say the amount of gas in Nord Stream 1 probably equals around a third of Germany's annual methane emissions. (More pipelines stories.)
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