US Energy Dept. 'concerned' over threats to EU energy infrastructure

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
31 Oct 2022 18:43

Despite the many clues that point to the US's possible involvement in the sabotage of gas pipelines, Washington is "concerned" over the EU's energy infrastructure.

US DoE assistant sec Brad Crabtree during the CCUS forum in Oslo (via @HTuohi)

In light of the recent damage inflicted on the Nord Stream pipeline, which the US is highly suspected of orchestrating, the US Department of Energy expressed on Monday that it was "very concerned" over the EU's critical energy infrastructure.

An assistant secretary for the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, Brad Crabtree, said: "I don't have information of specific threats, but what I would say is we are very concerned about threats to infrastructure."

All countries, Crabtree added, are out to be "very vigilant in making extra efforts to monitor the security" of their vital energy infrastructure - just as the US is doing so itself.

He further added that in a recent trip to Norway, the Norweigian government likewise expressed it was "very, very concerned" about its national oil and gas production, considering it plays a "vital role" in supplying natural gas to the EU.

On September 26, three of the four pipes of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 underwater pipelines, which were constructed to transport a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually, reportedly experienced explosions. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office condemned the incident as an act of international terrorism and later found that the UK Royal Navy had a hand in the sabotage.

On October 20, the Russian defense ministry said in a statement "According to the obtained data, the UK Navy representatives took part in planning, organizing, and carrying out the terrorist act in the Baltic Sea on September 26, 2022, to blow up the Nord Stream-1 and Nord Stream-2 gas pipelines."

Earlier today, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin trusts the Ministry of Defense and does not need evidence that the UK was involved in the attack on the Black Sea Fleet ships and the Nord Stream pipelines.