The gas pipeline where the fire broke out was used to deliver gas to northern Lithuania and transport it to neighboring Latvia.
An explosion damaged the Amber Grid gas pipeline connecting the Baltic countries with Poland in northern Lithuania without causing casualties on Friday, January 13, the local operator said on its website. “Around 5 p.m., an explosion occurred in the Amber Grid gas pipeline in Pasvalys district. According to initial data, no one was injured,” the Amber Grid Group press release said.
The explosion of one of the two pipes of the gas pipeline, the damaged section of which was built in 1978, according to the operator, happened far from residential buildings, about five kilometers from Pasvalys.
A fire official told AFP that “the fire, which was about 50 meters tall at its peak, had begun to subside.” In a press release published on the Facebook account of the Pasvalys District Administration, “the gas main fire was extinguished” in the evening. “The evacuees can return to their place of residence at the decision of the head of operations,” the text says.
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Ongoing investigation
Nemunas Biknius, the CEO of Amber Grid, said in the statement that his group “immediately started investigating the circumstances of the incident and ensuring the supply of gas to consumers.” “In the immediate future we have not observed any malicious actions” linked to this explosion, but “the investigation will cover all possible scenarios,” he added to journalists.
According to Latvian Minister of Climate and Energy Raimonds Cudars, mentioned by the Baltic news agency BNS, the gas pipeline explosion in Lithuania has not caused any problems with natural gas supply in Latvia so far. Still, “the gas pipeline explosion in Lithuania needs careful investigation (and) even sabotage cannot be ruled out,” Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks tweeted.
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The group said the gas pipeline where the fire broke out was used to deliver gas to northern Lithuania and transport it to neighboring Latvia. Since June 2022, Lithuania has banned itself from importing Russian gas in connection with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
After regaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Lithuania was heavily dependent on Russian gas until 2014 when an LNG terminal in Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea became operational, then in 2022 that of a new gas pipeline linking the three Baltic states European gas network via Poland. In September, explosions hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which connect Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea and were built to transport Russian gas to Europe. According to the Swedish public prosecutor’s office, these explosions are sabotage.
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