Thread by @OAlexanderDK

I found something odd while looking at AIS data over the Nord Stream 2 leak. In December 2019 when the Pioneering Spirit was laying the pipe, the entire track was normal and smooth and done in a single pass.

Except for one location.

The only location where the track is slightly strange is within 50m of the Nord Stream 2 explosion location.

Here the Pioneering Spirit doubles back over this area and stays in this area for 20 hours.

This is the only location where there is any abnormality like this during the entire pipelaying track from November 26th 2019 to December 21st 2019.

Looking back at weather data for the 15-16 December 2019 shows that this was when a storm hit the area, which explains the drifting.

I wonder if the pipe in this area was damaged or incorrectly laid due to the onset of the storm. That explains why this blast happened 17 hours prior and 80km away from the other two blasts.

If the NS2 rupture was potentially an accident, that could explain why only one of the 2 NS2 lines was damaged.

In a scenario where someone had intended to destroy NS1. The rupture of NS1 caused them to accelerate the plans for the NS1 explosions.

IF the NS2 was not part of the immediate plan and instead a catalyst, that could mean only NS1 was rigged for destruction.

In a scenario where only NS1 was rigged, that would shift motivation onto Russia. NS1 was "out of commission" so had much less value than NS2.

The NS1 explosives may have long been a "back up plan" for the responsible party.

If NS2 accidentally ruptured, the remaining pipes would probably be inspected revealing the explosives.

The plan was then accelerated and NS1 was detonated 17 hours after the NS2 rupture.

The 2 NS1 lines and a single NS2 line being blown up was always a weird situation to quantify.

It can be argued the US/NATO had motivation to blow all 4 lines.

At the same time it can be argued that Russia had motivation to blow NS1, but not NS2.

This scenario leaves a situation where the motivation makes some sense.

NS1 could be destroyed by Russia to increase pressure on Germany, while at the same time not being a massive loss, as they stated it was "out of commission".

This would leave NS2 available to open immediately after the shock of the destruction of NS1. This is something Putin still offered.

dw.com/en/putin-offer…

The Minerva Julie also had a very strange track directly above the location of the NS1 explosions from the 5th September to 13th September while on route to Saint Petersburg.

No such weird tracks have been found near the NS1 leak.

https://twitter.com/breakingcraft_/status/1626610796812808192

As far as I have been able to gather only the Swedish government has publicly confirmed finding explosive residue. This would be at the NS1 sites. No public mention of Denmark finding explosive residue at the NS2 site.

washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/…

I have made this thread into a post on my Substack in order to make it easier to follow:

oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/was-the-nord…

Interesting thread suggesting that the owner of “Minerva Marine”, the company that owns the Minerva Julie has connections to Putin, Shoigu, Medvedev and other high ranking Russian officials.

H/T @MarkPlackett1

https://twitter.com/DmytroNatalukha/status/1562817824321851394

Looking at the seismology data, Denmark reported 2.3 and 2.1 measured at the seismometer. Sweden calculated 1.9 and 2.3 at the respective sites.

1.9 is equivalent to ~10kg of TNT.

2.3 is the equivalent to ~44kg.

The force of the pipes bursting should account for this.

In regards to Russia’s motivation to use NS2 instead of NS1 in a harsh winter situation to pressure Germany.

NS2 gas supply would be on a new contract where Russia would be able to dictate the terms had Germany been struggling through a harsh winter with inadequate gas supply.

The place where the NS1 blasts took place was the deepest point in the immediate area. Blowing here ensures that the least possible amount of the pipeline gets flooded. This sabotages the pipeline but leaves as much of it unflooded and repairable as possible.

H/T @AndrewARay

I did some rough calculations, and the NS lines were 1153mm in diameter at 105 bar and a depth of ~80m. This would mean that a sizable rupture of the pipe would produce between ~7.6kg (31.6MJ) to 31kg of TNT(128.5MJ).

Also noted that the first tremor was recorded at 1.8, not 1.9 by Sweden. This means it was the equivalent of 31.6MJ or ~7.6kg of TNT.

snsn.se/stora/Events_2…

Allseas suspended work on laying the pipe for Nord Stream 2 a week after the Pioneering Spirit was had the incident over the future NS2 leak due to sanctions on the pipeline.

allseas.com/news/allseas-s…

A year and a half later the Russian pipelayer Akademik Cherskiy spent almost all of April 2021 working on that exact part of the pipeline. It was the only part of NS2 that it covered on this trip.

I wonder if the work on that section of pipe following the storm was not completed by Allseas due to the implementation of sanctions.

Could the year and a half gap were the work not completed, or poor worksmanship by the crew on the Akademik Cherskiy has been a major factor?

Just to show the location of the NS2 leak in comparison with where AIS data put the Pioneering Spirit in the minutes before it aborted its work for roughly 20 hours due to the storm on December 15-16 2019.

The location if the leak is exactly where the the pipe would have been dropped and afterwards recovered as part of the "abandonment and recovery" process due to the storm.

I have just found video of the NS2 site that I had never seen before. The pipe looks to be relatively cleanly sheered right at the location of a weld between two sections of pipe.

It looks to have failed right at the joint. The damage also looks very different than the damage that can be seen on the NS1 site.

Link to the video here:

tv2bornholm.dk/?newsID=255807

Damage at the NS1 site showed much more significant evidence of a blast. Something not present in the NS2 footage.

Here you can see the video showing the blast damage on the section of the NS1 pipeline.

https://twitter.com/KallergisK/status/1594653051029184517

On the NS2 video, there is a small section of the pipe bent outwards, while the rest has sheered quite cleanly.

Possibly a weak point in the weld that gave way first before the pipe was sheered by the pressure of the gas.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 which caused Allseas to stop work on December 21st 2019, was voted through by the House on December 12th.

At this point sanctions and the work stoppage was inevitable.

It is not unlikely that once this became inevitable the quality of work dropped. Combined with the additional stress and difficulty of the storm on the 15-16 December, I think it is highly likely that the NS2 leak was the result of a pipe failure and not direct sabotage.

Allseas founder Edward Heerema with Putin and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller on the Pioneering Spirit while it was laying TurkStream.

If the NS2 leak was caused by poor workmanship on the PS, the following NS1 explosions saved Heerema a large amount of liability.

Quite the lucky break that they are suddenly completely off the hook for the liability. If it was a manufacturing defect, Heerema is the luckiest man alive.

On the 25th October the US requested permission from Denmark to send a destroyer to inspect the NS2 leak location.

The USS Roosevelt entered the Baltic Sea on the 16th and left on the 27th and had its AIS off.

From the information currently available, it was only this leak they were interested in inspecting.

I wonder if the U.S. was confused about this leak. They may have had evidence of the reason behind the other leaks, but not this one.