According to authorities in Helsinki, the undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged and gas supply through it was temporarily suspended. The telecommunications cable laid along the seabed between the two countries was also damaged.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also said on Tuesday that Britain is ready to support Finland and Estonia in investigating gas pipeline and submarine cable accidents. “As NATO allies and just friends, we are committed to ensuring security in the Baltic Sea,” Sunak wrote on social network X, a former Twitter account. “Sauli Niinistö, Kaja Kallas, Britain stands ready to assist you in your investigation.”
The 77-kilometer-long Balticconnector gas pipeline, which runs along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland and connects the Finnish city of Inkoo with the Estonian Paldiski, was shut down early on Sunday morning due to a sharp drop in pressure in the system. As Finnish President Sauli Niinist said, “most likely, the damage to the gas pipeline and communication cable was the result of external influences,” and the country’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo emphasized that although the accident is alarming, Finland’s energy reserves will not suffer from this, and damage to the communication cable will not in any way will affect communications in the country. At the same time, the Finnish gas pipeline operator, Gasgrid, notes that repairs may take several months.
During the press conference, Orpo also stressed that it is too early to draw conclusions about who or what may have caused the accident. The Finnish Bureau of Investigation has already stated that it is looking into the matter.
The Balticconnector gas pipeline is used to pump gas between Estonia and Finland, depending on which country needs it more. Both countries claim that the gas pipeline accident had no impact on their energy security, but neither can yet say with certainty what caused the leak.
Authorities in both Finland and Estonia said that the damaged section of the cable lies in the Estonian economic zone, and the damaged section of the gas pipeline lies in the Finnish one. Both were damaged on Sunday night. Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur spoke about this in more detail at a press conference.
“We have most likely identified the location, but we still need confirmation because this location is very deep at the bottom of the sea,” the defense minister said. According to him, the damaged section of the cable lies at a depth of 70 meters, the damaged section of the gas pipeline lies at a depth of 60 meters and is in the Finnish economic zone. “It is still impossible to say today whether these two incidents are connected. They are geographically located in quite different places; we still need to find out what is behind one event and what is behind another. [Although] they are quite close in time,” Pevkur said.
“The picture of the pipe that we saw confirms that these damages were not caused by a diver or a small underwater robot, these damages are more serious,” Pevkur said, recalling at the same time that, according to seismologists, there was no explosion in the area. Later, the Norwegian seismological institute NORSAR reported that on the night from Saturday to Sunday, at 01:20 local time (22:20 October 7 GMT), a “possible explosion” was registered in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia. Its location and power are still estimated with a high degree of uncertainty, data analysis is ongoing.
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