The Danish electricity and gas network operator has lowered its level of vigilance, which had been raised considerably after the spectacular sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines off the Danish coast at the end of September.
The vigilance level is now reduced to “green”, its second lowest level, after already being lowered one notch from “orange” to “yellow” at the end of October, Energinet announced in a statement.
It was the Danish Energy Authority that asked it to lower the vigilance a notch after “an analysis of the threat level”, explains the public company.
At the end of September, four huge gas leaks were detected off the Danish island of Bornholm and the coast of southern Sweden on gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany, after seismographs recorded two suspicious large underwater explosions.
The leaks were all in international waters, but two in the Danish exclusive economic zone and two in the Swedish EEZ.
Investigations by the Danish and Swedish authorities have confirmed sabotage and experts agree that only a state has the means to carry out such an operation. However, the investigations did not lead to the identification of a responsible person.
Moscow accused London in early November of having been “directed and coordinated by British military specialists,” an accusation aimed at “deflecting” suspicions against Russia, according to Downing Street. The head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov accused the Europeans of not conducting proper investigations into the explosions.
Out of service at the time of the events, the two gas pipelines, symbols of German dependence on Russian gas, nevertheless contained large quantities of methane, which escaped for several weeks, causing impressive boiling.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store announced at the end of November that they had launched an initiative within NATO to better protect maritime infrastructures.
