Brunsbüttel : holes in pipeline under construction
Update: According to an article released at the beginning of January (Spiegel, 9/1), the sabotage against this gas pipeline was more extensive than the information originally released and translated below. The pipeline under construction was perforated in eight different places (not three), spread over a distance of more than a kilometer, causing damage estimated at at least 1.6 million euros. This new 55-kilometer pipeline is intended to connect the new liquefied natural gas terminal near Brunsbüttel to the German energy grid. According to investigators, the holes drilled in the steel gas pipe were barely visible from the outside, as the plastic coating covering them had contracted again after drilling. They were discovered at the end of November during a pipeline pressure test and reported to the police by the operator, Gasunie.
From Switch off the system of destruction, December 24, 2023
Brunsbüttel (Schleswig-Holstein region) November/December 2023
Federal Prosecutor’s Office investigates possible sabotage of liquefied natural gas pipeline
The Criminal Office of the Schleswig-Holstein region is investigating a possible attempt to sabotage the new liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipeline between Brunsbüttel and Hetlingen in northern Germany. Holes measuring around one centimeter in diameter were discovered in at least three places along the 55-kilometer route.
The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office has “taken over the investigation due to the suspicion of unconstitutional sabotage (§ 88 para. 1 of the German Criminal Code) in connection with the alleged damage to the pipeline”, said the prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. According to a local newspaper, the company operating the liquefied natural gas (LNG) route in Schleswig-Holstein, Gasunie, had already contacted the criminal police in November to report damage to the line.
Operation of the new pipeline, dubbed “ETL 180”, was originally scheduled to begin at the end of last year – the floating LNG terminal having already arrived in Brunsbüttel in January – but has not yet started. The pipeline route runs between Brunsbüttel, in the Dithmarschen district at the mouth of the River Elbe, and Hetlingen, in the Pinneberg district south of Hamburg. The function of the pipeline is to transport liquefied natural gas from a terminal off the coast of Brunsbüttel to an injection point in the pipeline network. Construction of several LNG pipelines began in March last year.
The German federal government is placing increasing reliance on LNG – not least to replace missing gas deliveries from Russia following the war in Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis – and is working at breakneck speed to build its own infrastructure. Important energy routes, such as Germany’s northern gas pipeline to bring LNG from a North Sea terminal into the country’s interior, are considered critical infrastructure. As such, sabotage of such facilities falls within the remit of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.
(…) The construction of these LNG pipelines does not meet with unanimous approval. In August 2023, some 50 climate activists from the “Ende Gelände” alliance blocked part of the construction site in Wilhelmshaven and occupied construction machinery. Various environmental protection groups, including Greenpeace, wanted to prevent the construction of the liquefied natural gas terminal. They criticized the plans of Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), claiming that the “hydrogen-compatible” classification was nothing more than “greenwashing”. The environmental associations BUND and Nabu also called for LNG terminal projects to be scaled back. These would be oversized in view of the shift away from fossil fuels.
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