Germany fears that the Nord Stream gas pipeline has been rendered useless forever after the sabotage

Image provided by the Swedish coast guard of one of the Nord Stream leaks in the Baltic Sea. HANDOUT (AFP)

As natural gas continues to gush to the surface of the Baltic Sea from leaks from Russia's two Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, questions are being raised about the future of this infrastructure.

Will the pipelines ever be able to transport gas again after what the German, Swedish, Danish and European Union governments consider “sabotage”?

It is not clear that repair is possible and, if so, would be enormously expensive.

According to the daily

, the German authorities believe that the pipeline has probably been rendered useless forever.

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If the pipes are not repaired quickly, large amounts of salt water will enter and corrode the pipes, according to the Berlin newspaper from government sources.

An agile repair, however, seems complicated.

In the first place, because it is not clear who should undertake it, since the infrastructure is private.

In addition, as the Danish Government explained this Wednesday, it will not be possible to inspect the leaks for another one or two weeks.

The current pressure in the pipes is still very high and a lot of gas is still escaping, making inspection difficult.

The German Army has sent ships to the area to help the Danish and Swedish Navy.

It has not yet been possible to take images of what happens underwater.

The two gas pipelines remained closed, without pumping fuel, but they were full of gas.

On Monday afternoon, a strange pressure drop was detected in Nord Stream 2, the newest pipeline, and hours later it was found that there was a leak located southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm.

Already on Tuesday, the Swedish authorities discovered two more leaks, this time in the Nord Stream 1, further north, in Swedish territorial waters.

Before the gas began to come out, seismographs in the area recorded two explosions.

Since then, navigation has been prohibited within five nautical miles of both zones and military ships from several countries patrol the zone.

The spill is visible on the surface of the sea;

draw a bubbling circle about 900 meters in diameter.

The gas keeps coming out.

"The situation has not changed compared to yesterday [on Tuesday]," a spokesman for the Swedish coast guard told EL PAÍS.

According to calculations by

, there were about 500 million cubic meters of gas in the pipes, which Germany consumes on average in two days.

At current prices in Europe, that amount would have a market value of more than €800 million.

And whose gas is that?

The newspaper maintains that in the case of Nord Stream 1 its owner is the Russian state monopoly Gazprom;

in that of Nord Stream 2, an infrastructure promoted by the Russian and German governments and that has never been used, too, although indirectly.

The pipeline manager is Nord Stream AG, a company based in Switzerland but owned by Gazprom.

A spokesman for the operator said Wednesday that he does not rule out repairing the pipes.

However, he added to the German Press Agency, before deciding what to do, the damage must be assessed.

And that is still not possible, among other things because the authorities of the two affected countries do not allow anyone to approach the area.

"Currently no one can know how things are down there," spokesman Ulrich Lissek said.

The extent of the damage can only be estimated based on what is seen coming to the surface.

"The structural integrity of the pipeline is likely to be massively damaged," he said, mentioning a possible "giant fissure."

Already on Tuesday the company had described the damage, which occurred almost simultaneously at various points, as "unprecedented."

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