It started with Gazprom revealing that the Line B string of NS2 is intact; not only it escaped Pipeline Terror but may “potentially” be used to pump gas to Germany.
That confirms once again that NS2 is an engineering marvel. In fact the whole system: the pipes are so strong they were not broken, but merely punctured.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak followed up, with a caveat: restoration of the whole system, including NS, is possible, and “requires time and appropriate funds”. But first, in Russia’s order of priorities, the perpetrators must be conclusively identified.
Sources in Moscow confirmed Gazprom’s assessment of NS2. Even Bloomberg had to report it.
Subsequently in Vienna, attending the Opec+ meeting, Novak remarked the Russian Federation is “ready to supply gas through the second line of Nord Stream 2. This is possible if necessary”.
So we know it’s possible. “Necessary” will depend on a political decision by Germany.
Novak also sharply noted that neither Russia nor the Nord Stream operators are allowed to investigate Pipeline Terror. Russia insists that without its participation the investigation is flawed.
Whatever the modus operandi of Pipeline Terror, incompetence was part of the package. No explosive charges were placed or detonated on Line B of NS2.
That means, as Novak said, it’s virtually ready for business. Line B is capable of pumping 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year, which happens to be half of the total capacity of NS.
NS’s capacity had been reduced to 20%, due to the interminable turbine saga, before it was completely shut down. Crucially, Line B of NS2 would still pump 2.75 times the capacity of the recently inaugurated Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland via Denmark. Which basically profits Poland, unlike NS2 servicing several EU customers.
In a rational world, Berlin would scrap the Russian sanctions pile up and immediately order the start of forever-delayed NS2, guaranteed to at least attenuate the ongoing process of de-energization, de-industrialization and deep socio-economic crisis imposed by the usual suspects on Germany.
But the collective West remains enslaved by geopolitical psychopaths guided by irrationality. So that’s not likely to happen.
For starters, the “investigation” of how Pipeline Terror happened feels like Kafka rewritten by NATO.
The sanctions dementia never stops though. The G7, in three subsequent stages, will target Russian crude, diesel and naphtha, according to the US Treasury. They still insist on an oil price cap – which neither Russia nor several Global South customers will follow.
The Big Picture remains the same. Pipeline Terror was a desperate gambit to keep Germany from concluding a sanctions carve-out for the Nord Streams with Russia.
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