Poland investigates leak on Russian oil pipeline to Germany

A leak has been discovered on the Druzhba pipeline that carries crude oil from Russia to Germany, the Polish operator PERN said on Wednesday, adding that the cause was under investigation.

PERN said the leak was reported late Tuesday evening on one of the two strands of the western section of the pipeline about 70 kilometres from the central Polish city of Płock.

The pumps on the affected strand have been turned off but the other strand is "operating unchanged," the statement said. Other sections of the vast pipeline network were also running normally.

Emergency repair crews and the fire department were dispatched to the site of the leak in a cornfield near the village of Boniewo. A prosecutor was also at the scene.

A chemical and environmental clean-up team was working at the site, a local fire brigade spokesman told public broadcaster TVP. They have pumped out 400 cubic metres of oil, he said on Wednesday morning.

He said oil flow had stopped and the pressure on the pipeline was dropping.

The Druzhba pipeline is one of the largest in the world and supplies Russian oil to several countries in Central Europe, including the major Schwedt refinery in Germany. The pipes run partly above and partly below ground.

Germany's oil supplies are secure, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said.

The Schwedt refinery in the state of Brandenburg as well as the Leuna refinery in Saxony-Anhalt were still receiving crude oil via the pipeline, a spokesperson said.

"Both PCK Schwedt and the Leuna refinery have deliberately increased their own on-site oil stocks in recent weeks as a precaution," the spokesperson said. They also receive oil from other places such as Rostock in northern Germany and Gdansk in Poland.

A looming EU embargo on Russian oil, which comes into force on January 1, already meant that alternative supplies were being sought for Schwedt.

Polish authorities emphasized the cause and nature of the leak was still under investigation.

"The cause of the leak in the Druzhba pipeline is currently under investigation. So far, there are no clues as to the cause of the failure. All hypotheses are possible," the spokesman the country's security services, Stanisław Żaryn, wrote on Twitter.

But the potential for the energy infrastructure to become the target of attacks has unsettled European capitals amid sky-high tensions between the West and Russia.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that run from Russia to Germany were ruptured by still-unexplained blasts late last month, in what European capitals have called cases of suspected sabotage.

The leaks were located in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Denmark and Sweden. The countries have launched investigations.

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia is ready to resume gas deliveries via Nord Stream 2, which was fully constructed but never went into actual operation.

He said it could be repaired so that supplies once again flow to Europe.

"There is no doubt, this is an act of international terrorism, a deeply dangerous precedent," Putin said during an appearance at the Russian Energy Week in Moscow.

The goal, he said, was to irrevocably rupture relations between the EU and Russia and weaken Europe. Previously, he has suggested Washington would benefit from such an attack.

Russia halted gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in early September, citing technical problems that it said could not be fixed because of Western sanctions. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was put on ice by Berlin because of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Kaynak: DPA