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Finland–Estonia Gas Pipeline Leak: Facts and Speculation [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-11-12  

This story is the result of discussions with schaedenfreude, registered sea captain and owner of a US-flagged vessel, who unfortunately left DailyKos recently. Everything that has to do with seamanship is based on information I got from him, as far as I have understood him correctly. My part was collecting and analyzing data from Finnish and Estonian media and bringing the two perspectives together.

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Balticconnector is a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. It runs along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland and connects the Finnish and Estonian gas networks via Inkoo in Finland and Paldiski in Estonia. The pipeline has a length of 152 km / 94.4 mi and could be operated in both directions. It has been able to transport 7.2 million cubic metres of gas per day.

On 8 October 2023, around 02:00 local time, the two operating companies Gasgrid Finland and Estonian Elering noticed a sudden drop in pressure in the line. The operators closed the valves to stop the flow.

Norwegian seismological institute NORSAR reported that it detected a «probable explosion» 40 km north of Paldiski, roughly where Balticconnector and Nord Stream intersect, on the October 8 at 01:20 local time. A few days later investigators stated based on the first photos of the site the damage «appears to have been mechanical, not an explosion».

The leak is located just north of the point where the Balticconnector pipeline crosses the four strings of the since September 2022 no longer operational Nord Stream gas pipeline.

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October 24, 2023: Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation had clarified technically the cause of gas pipeline damage, here the key takeaways:

The sequence of events has been established on the basis of evidence and data, and the vessel Newnew Polar Bear, flying the flag of Hong Kong, is believed to have caused the damage. General Head of Investigation Detective Superintendent Risto Lohi described that on the seabed, a 1.5 to 4 metre-wide dragging trail is seen to lead to the point of damage in the gas pipeline. In the distance of a few metres from the gas pipeline damage point, there was an anchor which is believed to have caused the wide dragging trail and the damage itself. «Early this morning the anchor was lifted up. There are traces in it which indicate that it has been in contact with the gas pipeline», Lohi says. At the press conference Lohi stated that Newnew Polar Bear was contacted several times, but they were not willing to cooperate. «The police had no competence to take any coercive measures against the vessel, since it sailed in the exclusive economic zone of Finland, which is out of the police competence in this respect», Lohi says. Particular attention will be paid to investigating if there has been any premeditation or negligence involved in the sequence of events.

Photos published by Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation: Anchor, pipe damage from the front, pipe damage from the side, wide scratch mark west and narrow drag mark east of the fracture site.

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Newnew Polar Bear, Hong Kong-registered container ship, left St Petersburg for China along the Northeast Passage for the first time on July 7, 2023. It arrived in Shanghai on August 4, stopped at Arkhangelsk and Kaliningrad on the return journey and was returning to St Petersburg on October 8, just crossing the Balticconnector gas pipeline when the damage occurred. Minutes later, Sevmorput too passed the damage site, a nuclear-powered merchant ship designed for the Arctic, operated by the state-owned Rosatom.

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Let's start with the central piece of evidence, with the anchor that was found next to the fracture: Who lost the anchor, Newnew Polar Bear or Sevmorput? Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, Latest news, November 10, 2023, has a clear answer:

The investigation into the Balticconnector gas pipeline leak has been ongoing for a month now. Technical investigations have confirmed the suspicion that the anchor that was lifted from the sea belongs to the Newnew Polar Bear. Co-operation between Finland, Estonia and national supporting authorities has been close and fruitful. The police have also increased cooperation with the Chinese authorities to investigate the case. «Technical investigations are still ongoing, although the active site investigation of the incident has been completed. At this stage, it can be concluded that the anchor recovered from the sea on 24 October 2023 matches the anchor of the Newnew Polar Bear in terms of certain technical specifications. The same type of paint has also been found on the anchor as on the damaged gas pipeline», says Detective Superintendent Risto Lohi.

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The damaged pipeline is made of 15.9 mm / 0.63 in thick carbon steel, with an internal diameter of 500 mm / 19.7 in. The pipe is surrounded by a protective concrete lining, and in the most critical areas, the pipe is protected by a further one metre thick layer of stone, but not at the location of the leak.

Newnew Polar Bear was sailing with a speed of 11 kn or 20 km/h / 13 mi/h, dragging behind on the seafloor an anchor with a mass of maybe eight metric tons. The damaged anchor was found a few meters east of the fracture, missing a fluke and the shank.

To give an idea of the size and mass of an anchor of a vessel like the Newnew Polar Bear, the photo on the right may give an impression.

The purpose of a ship’s anchor is not to stop the ship: the chain weight is what keeps the ship anchored, the anchor is merely the means for pulling chain out of the anchor locker.

After a ship reaches its anchorage, they then try to set the anchor on the seabed. This usually involves coming to a complete stop, dropping a few shots of chain, and then moving forward or backwards until resistance is felt. At that point, the ship then plays out a few more shots of chain, moves a bit, then plays out a pile of chain on the seafloor.

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The weather conditions in that area at that time were rough: 29 knot winds from 335 (NNW), which were hitting the ship broadside. 29 knot winds mean near gale, 7 on the Beaufort scale, with rough sea. Six foot seas, 12 feet from trough to crest, which isn’t really that big of a deal, except the wave frequency was 5.2 seconds, which means a washing machine. Plus, at 1am, it was dark, which surely added to the stress level on the bridge.

In that scenario – high winds and heavy seas – it would have been prudent for the ship’s captain to ready for an emergency anchorage. Dragging an anchor for some distance, that means a ship’s captain would have been preparing to anchor but hadn’t reached their anchorage yet, misjudged the depth of the water, resulting in dragging an anchor.

But here comes the but: Newnew Polar Bear obviously had no intention of anchoring, but was on a steady course heading east-nordeast. And a wide drag mark caused by the anchor stretches for miles toward the fracture, and a narrower one for miles further to the east-nordeast, caused by the broken shaft and the anchor chain.

There is no reliable information on the question of how far the drag marks of the anchor extend to the west and later of the anchor shaft to the east, only a vague indication of «kilometers».

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That's now enough about the nown facts; what follows is a series of questions that arise from this initial setting:

1. Did the helmsman on the bridge realize that the Newnew Polar Bear was dragging anchor across the seabed for many miles?

Not only the helmsman but everyone on the bridge would definitely have known they were dragging anchor. This would have been an intentional, planned scenario. It can therefore be ruled out that the anchor had come loose unnoticed and the chain had been pulled out, especially as the anchor chain is secured to the anchor winch more than once.

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2. Must the officers on the bridge have realized that the anchor had become caught on something and separated from the chain?

On the bridge everybody would have known they hit something as soon as it happened because the forward momentum of the ship would suddenly lurch portside and bow-down, probably with whitewater over the bow, while the mass of the ship pulled whatever it had hit on the seafloor. The coffee would not have stayed in the cups on the bridge.

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3. It can be assumed that the anchor was knowingly and intentionally dragged across the bottom of the sea. Three assumptions are possible, but all three are equally unconvincing:

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A. It is possible that the anchor would be intentionally dragged to act as a type of drogue device. The leverage from the dragged anchor would offset the high winds from NNW hitting the high freeboard, the area above the waterline, and would prevent the ship from being pushed out of the apparent direction:

Only the directions of the vectors are relevant here, the actual forces cannot be determined

Given those conditions, in that area, at that time of day, it might be understandable why a captain might ready an anchor and use it as a drogue, dragging the anchor over ground, even if this can be considered anything but a standard procedure in this situation. What is not acceptable, however, is knowingly losing an anchor to an underwater collision and not disclosing it.

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B. Did Newnew Polar Bear attempt to anchor, which failed, and was then unable to heave the anchor again in the adverse weather conditions? This hypothesis is contradicted by the fact that the ship was traveling at a constant speed. Reports had circulated in the Finnish press that the ship had reduced speed to 1 knot shortly before contacting the pipeline, but this was decidedly denied by Toni Joutsia, Chief of the Finnish Naval Operations Center.

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C. What remains is the hypothesis of a targeted action to destroy the pipeline. In this context, it may be of interest that the Russian container ship Sevmorput passed the damage site a few minutes after the incident. Newnew Polar Bear left Kaliningrad October 6 in the early afternoon, faster sailing Sevmorput was at that time further to the southwest somewhere northeast of Bornholm.

With more precise timing, it would have remained unclear which of the two ships was responsible for the damage, which was then rendered obsolete by the anchor being disconnected and recovered at the site of the damage. On the other hand, if the pipeline had been deliberately destroyed, it would probably have been expected that the anchor would have been torn off at the scene of the incident.

What ultimately thwarted this hypothetical plan was the fact that the pipeline rupture was recorded by Norwegian seismological institute NORSAR, which detected a «probable explosion» 40 km north of Paldiski on the October 8 at 01:20 local time, roughly where Balticconnector and Nord Stream intersect and where the Balticconnector pipeline was damaged.

What makes this hypothesis questionable is the fact that a Chinese ship is involved: that just doesn't make sense. Let's hope that the Finnish authorities continue to provide information as in the past, not like their Swedish counterparts regarding the Nord Stream leaks.

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P.S. Little is known about the damaged data cables and about a possible connection with the fracture of the gas pipeline. One of the four data cables between Finland and Estonia is certainly damaged, possibly also data cables between St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad and between Estonia and Sweden. Perhaps later.

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