Geopolitics and Energy Security

On 26 September 2022 explosions southeast and northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, in the Danish and Swedish economic zones of the Baltic Sea, ruptured three of the four steel strings of the Nord Stream pipelines, which carried Russian gas under the sea to Germany. Both lines of Nord Stream 1, about 55 bcm a year of capacity, and one line of Nord Stream 2 were destroyed; the second Nord Stream 2 line was intact (reported). Together the two systems had cost about €17 billion to build (reported). The release was one of the largest single discharges of methane ever recorded, estimated in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes (reported).

The explosions changed almost nothing about Europe's supply that week, because no gas was flowing. Gazprom had been withdrawing it for a year. In 2021 it had kept the European storage sites it controlled, including Rehden in Germany, the largest in Western Europe, unusually low and sold little gas beyond its contracted volumes while prices rose. Germany halted the certification of the newly finished Nord Stream 2 on 22 February 2022; Russia invaded Ukraine two days later. It then demanded payment in roubles, cut off Poland and Bulgaria on 27 April, reduced Nord Stream 1 to 40% of capacity in June and 20% in July, citing turbine maintenance, and stopped it entirely on 31 August. The Dutch TTF price had closed at its record of about €340/MWh five days earlier (Chapter 3). The day after the explosions, 27 September, the Baltic Pipe opened, carrying Norwegian gas to Poland.

Who did it remained contested. Sweden and Denmark closed their investigations in February 2024 without naming anyone. German prosecutors pursued Ukrainian suspects: one, Serhii Kuznietsov, was arrested in Italy in August 2025, extradited on 27 November 2025, and went on trial in Hamburg on 14 October 2026; a second suspect was reportedly detained in Croatia in August 2026 (reported). For Gazprom, the result was settled long before any verdict. Its pipeline exports to Europe fell from about 150 bcm in 2021 to about 25 bcm in 2023 and about 18 bcm in 2025, the last of it through TurkStream; in 2023 it reported a net loss of about RUB 629 billion, its first annual loss since 1999 (reported). In 2025 it sold 38.8 bcm to China through Power of Siberia 1, the first year China took more of its gas than Europe, at prices well below those Europe had paid. In June 2024 Uniper, the German importer the state had rescued, won an arbitration award of more than about €13 billion against Gazprom for undelivered gas (reported).