Factual knowledge beats blind speculation

The two Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic exploded this week.  There has been much speculation in the press.  The cast of actors who could or might have had a motive to destroy them is long but none of the storylines make much sense.  

Too far from home and too complex a mission for the otherwise most likely suspects, the Ukrainians.  

The destruction is well within the capabilities of the US, and President Biden did make some Delphic warning comments to the Russians back in February (in the context of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine) regarding shutting down the pipelines.  But the US has been extremely careful about not overstepping a line.  They will supply weapons to the Ukrainians but not engage in acts of war on behalf of the Ukrainians.  Blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines would be an act of war.  America is both a conceivable suspect but also an unlikely candidate.

The Germans?  Probably could do it but why?  To cover for their bad energy policy and the possibility of a catastrophic winter?  Conceivable but far-fetched.  

The Russians?  Well . . . the Russians.  Crazy Ivan and all that.  Yes, possibly they could have intentionally blown the pipelines but the reasoning would be incredibly convoluted.  But there is always the Churchillian "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."  Just because we don't understand how they might interpret their own national interest doesn't mean that this event doesn't fit.  But again, it seems improbable.

Someone else?  The Baltic states?  Sweden or Denmark?  Britain?  China?  Terrorists?  Means and motives are both questionable.  

Everyone is claiming that this was a deliberate act.  No one is identifying who committed the act.  Everyone is implying or speculating.  A typical mainstream media account is here: The Mysterious Attack on Two Major Gas Pipelines Connecting Europe and Russia by Kevin T. Dugan

In all the news accounts I have seen, everyone seems to have dismissed what seems the most likely scenario to me.  Russia has a spectacular record of bad maintenance of complex equipment (just ask the soldiers tasked with the Ukrainian invasion) and the operation of complex systems (Hello! Chernobyl?; Hello! Kursk? Hello! Andreev Bay Nuclear Accident?).  

Why is everyone dismissing accidental destruction?  One very good reason is that there were two separate explosions seventeen hours and 30 miles apart.  That does seem to suggest a non-accident.  At the same time, who would commit two acts of sabotage in the same proximity within a day.  Within an hour or two, perhaps.  But the first accident will obviously attract intense attention to the vicinity.  Why wait seventeen hours, increasing the prospect of identification?  Perhaps they were to have gone off simultaneously but there was a problem in execution.  But now we are piling speculation on speculation.

Occam is our friend.

I have read perhaps a dozen mainstream news media accounts, all certain that it is intentional sabotage.

I come across only one account which fleshes out what I suspect is the more likely scenario.  The post is Nordstream by LawDog.  LawDog apparently has some background in the oil industry, as do I.  My father's career was in the international oil industry.  We lived in Sweden for several years.  He was involved in operations in the Baltic.  Very early in my career, I worked as an oilfield hand which included tangential involvement in distributed small scale oil collection pipelines.  Later, in my career, I was involved in consulting to clients with national natural gas collection and transportation operations.  

I make no claim to expertise in gas pipeline operation or maintenance procedures, but I have more than a passing knowledge of them.  Everything I know matches what LawDog describes which gives me confidence in his analysis in the areas with which I am not familiar.

The Nord pipelines weren’t in use. To me, that means it’s time for maintenance! Hard to maintain pipes when product is flowing.

Pipelines running methane, under saltwater, require PMCS* [Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services] quicker than you’d think, and more often than you’d believe.

I would bet a cup of coffee that any of the required weekly and monthly checks and services since the Russians took over have been pencil-whipped. (See Andreev Bay 1982.)

They officially shut it down in July of 2020 for maintenance, and had cornbread hell getting it back on-line, and “issues” with maintaining flow throughout the next year; shut it down again in July of 2021, with bigger “issues” — we say “issues” because the Russians won’t explain what these issues were — and even more problems, including unexplained, major disruptions in gas flow in Dec21/Jan22; Feb 22; and April 22.

He has a lot of good detail about natural gas pipeline operations and hydrate plugs.  Then gets to the crux.

“So, LawDog,” I hear you say, “What do you think happened?”

Honestly, I suspect someone in the Russian government pinged Gazprom, and said, “The EU is about to have a cold winter. make sure those pipelines sodding well work, so we can sell someone natural gas at massively increased prices.”

So, Somebody In Charge started running checks — and came up with hydrate slurry in both pipelines. After the running in circles, hyperventilating, and shrieking of curse-words stopped, somebody started trying to remediate both lines. Of course they didn’t tell folks down stream — no Russian want to look weak, and besides, there’s been a nasty uptick in failed Russian oligarchs getting accidentally defenestrated — they just unilaterally tried to Fix Things.

It’s methane hydrate. Trust me, if there’s a hydrate plug, there’s more than one. With both pipes having no movement for months, if not a year, there were a metric butt-ton of hydrate plugs, slurry, and rime in both pipelines.

The Fixing of Things went bad. One went Paws Up, and they started trying to stop the other — but pressurisation (both ways) is a weeks-long process, and the second went bad, too. 

I suspect LawDog is correct and that this non-mainstream news source is far more likely to be close to the mark than anything else I have seen.  And for relatively good reasons based on real world operational knowledge of pipelines and an awareness of Russian operational history.

His scenario matches what we have know has happened in the past.  The whole Chernobyl tragedy was the product of lax maintenance and poor adherence to safe practices.  The Kursk sinking highlighted the Russian aversion to involving foreign countries in an emergency, even if that involvement might have saved Russian lives.  And both of those incidents as well as the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 tragedy highlight the Russian practice of hiding the facts of what happened.  

Nothing is certain yet.  All scenarios remain viable.  But it is notable that the only account which I have seen which includes actual knowledge and familiarity with the relevant circumstances and with the past pattern of man-made disasters in Russia is from outside the mainstream media.

If you want to know what the Establishment wants to think, read the MSM.  If you want to know what actually happened, read widely among select trusted sources.