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Czech President Petr Pavel said that attacking the Nord Stream pipelines would have been a “legitimate” target for Ukraine amid reports pointing the finger at Kyiv for the sabotage. Pavel, who previously served as NATO chairman and before that at the head of the Czech Armed Forces, said that while he has no information to confirm reports that the Zelensky-led government in Ukraine was behind the September 2022 assault on the Russo-German Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, such an attack would have been justifiable in light of the Russian invasion months prior. Speaking to the online news magazine Novinky...

David Suzuki, the godfather of the Canadian environmental movement, warned over the weekend that if politicians don’t act to reverse climate change, there could be attacks against oil and gas infrastructure. “This is what we’re come to. The next stage after this, there are going to be pipelines blown up if our leaders don’t pay attention to what’s going on.” “The violence is coming from the authorities, from government, from the RCMP,” said Suzuki. “They’re declaring war against those that are protesting.” It wouldn’t be unprecedented. In Alberta, in the 1990s, Wiebo Ludwig, who died in 2012, engaged in a...

Wiebo Ludwig,(Alberta farmer) convicted of bombings in 1990s, says he understands frustration that leads to sabotage. RCMP called in members of a local search and rescue team on Saturday to help sift through a 300-metre debris field surrounding the second of two pipeline bombings. "It's likely we'll still be there tomorrow," RCMP spokesman Tim Shields said. Anything out of the ordinary hidden in the long grass and fallen leaves could lead them to the bomber. RCMP also released a partial description of a pickup truck seen leaving the scene the morning of the latest explosion. That blast happened before dawn...

Former CSIS strategist David Harris says a weekend explosion near the town of Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. fits the description of terrorism, despite police statements to the contrary. Sometime overnight Saturday, someone detonated a large explosion next to the sour gas pipeline about 50 kilometres from the B.C.-Alberta border. The blast did not rupture the pipeline but blew a 1.8-metre crater in the ground, which was discovered by a hunter on Sunday. "How on earth anyone could declare this was not terrorism at this early stage is beyond me. Terrorism is associated with an attempt by threat or actual...

One of the German diplomats who snickered when then-President Donald Trump said Germany would “become totally dependent on Russian energy” didn’t respond to a question on whether his views have changed as rising energy costs amidst the war in Ukraine seem to prove Trump right. Trump made the remarks during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in Sept. 2018. Trump said during the same speech: “Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation.” At the time, Germany and the United States disagreed strongly about the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2...

A natural gas expansion project spanning portions of New Jersey, Delaware and New York was dealt a legal setback after a federal appeals court vacated the approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned federal approval of the $1 billion expansion of the Transco natural gas pipeline, which would run through sections of New Jersey and Pennsylvania with extensions stretching into southern New York. The panel ruled that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission overlooked studies that the market for expanded natural gas in New Jersey was low when it granted approval last year to the...

HOUSTON, May 23 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump raised tens of millions of dollars during a fundraising swing through Texas this week, promising he would support the oil and gas industry by backing new pipelines and restoring fracking on federal land. [cut] A Houston fundraiser on Wednesday was hosted by oil billionaires Jeff Hildebrand, founder of Hilcorp Energy, the largest closely held U.S. oil firm; George Bishop, founder of GeoSouthern Energy; Harold Hamm, founder of Continental Resources; and Kelcy Warren, head of pipeline firm Energy Transfer Partners. Trump drew standing ovations when he promised to get more natural...

The goal, the report describes, is to find ways to “sow panic and chaos or snarl logistics in the event of a U.S.-China conflict in the Pacific.” China’s threat to America now includes schemes to disrupt power and water supplies, communications and even transportation systems, according to officials cited in a new report. Experts quoted by the Washington Post explained that hackers linked to China’s People’s Liberation Army already have succeeded in breaching “the computer systems of about two dozen critical entities over the past year.” The goal, the report describes, is to find ways to “sow panic and chaos...

It's nationwide knowledge that in early May the Colonial Pipeline company suffered a severe cyberattack that shut down its pipeline connecting Texas to the East Coast. On June 1, JBS Foods suffered another crippling cyberattack. According to industry estimates, JBS controls 20 percent of the slaughtering capacity for American cattle and hogs. The JBS attack also generated headlines. The FBI and security officials believe two criminal organizations conducted the attacks. Their names sound a bit like those of the sinister super gangs found in James Bond novels. However, these gangs aren't fiction nor are their crimes. A crime group called...

On Thursday, the U.S. government sold the Federal Helium Reserve, a massive underground stockpile based in Amarillo, Texas, that supplies up to 30% of the country’s helium. Once the deal is finalized, the buyer — which will likely be the highest bidder, the industrial gas company Messer — will claim some 425 miles of pipelines spanning Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, plus about 1 billion cubic feet of the only element on Earth cold enough to make an MRI machine work. Regulatory and logistical issues with the facility threaten a temporary shutdown as it passes from public to private ownership, and...

Following the news that Trans Mountain Corporation will start filling the expanded pipeline in February, with first crude to be loaded from Vancouver in April, Canadian crude prices jumped to the narrowest discount to WTI since August 2023. U.S. refiners used to cheap Canadian crude will need to start budgeting more for the commodity from this spring. Canadian oil producers are preparing for the 890,000 bpd in takeaway capacity growth. ... U.S. refiners used to cheap Canadian oil might need to reach deeper into their pockets to keep buying it. The idea behind the Trans Mountain expansion was to turn...

For both energy hungry India and its swiftly growing neighbor, Pakistan, the need for natural gas is more pressing than ever. Pakistan has one of the world’s fastest growing populations and its demand for gas will expand significantly over the next two decades. India’s gas demand will almost double by 2015 and due to the decline of its reserves it will be forced to import increasing amounts of gas. As the world’s second largest gas reserve, Iran is the most geographically convenient supplier of gas to both countries. ...Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is "a...

"Accidents" and deaths may be inevitable in extreme climate activism that could merit blowing up thousands of pipelines, author and radical climate activist Andreas Malm said in a startling new interview. The "How to Blow Up a Pipeline" writer and activist gave an interview to The New York Times on his upcoming follow-up book, "Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown." At the top of the exchange, Malm was questioned on how "it’s hard to think that deaths don’t become inevitable if there is more sabotage" like blowing up pipelines. "Sure, if you have a thousand pipeline explosions per...

The pipe was not covered with aggregate, although such a cover was intended to protect the pipe specifically from anchor damage. (BORDER GUARD DEPARTMENT) The Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia should have been protected by a 2-meter gravel cover. This is evident from the joint environmental impact assessment of Finland and Estonia from 2015. The assessment specifically took into account the dragging of the anchor along the seabed. The pictures published by the [Finnish] Navy show that there were no rocks protecting the pipe at the point of damage." https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/3a...

The three incidents that resulted in damage to a gas pipeline and two telecom cables between Estonia, Finland and Sweden "are related", Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said. Finland on Friday said it had raised its risk assessment for gas supply security as a result of the damage to the Balticconnector Finland-Estonia pipeline, which operator Gasgrid has said could be out of commission until April or longer. "An important gas import connection will be out of use during the winter season 2023/2024 for at least five months," the Finnish National Emergency Supply Agency said in a statement. The risk level...

Late tonight Israel launching air strikes into Syria... Israel's Credit Outlook lowered from "stable" to "negative"... Finnish investigators say the anchor of a Chinese container ship became dislodged damaging a natural gas pipeline... Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria striking targets of terrorist groups in the northwestern Idlib Region... The Pentagon now says that two dozen US military personnel were hurt in drone attacks on American bases in Iraq and Syria... Today a Russian SU-27 fighter intercepted a US spy drone approaching Russia in the Black Sea... The United Auto Workers expanding their strike against automakers to include a General Motors...

The European Union (EU) spent $100 million of taxpayer funds on building over 30 miles of water pipelines for Palestinians in Gaza, despite Hamas having bragged about their ability to turn the piping materials into makeshift rockets online. The EU participated in a number of initiatives between 2015 and 2022 to ensure Palestinians have fresh water, including working alongside UNICEF to install an 11-mile pipeline to Khan Yunus and Raha in southern Gaza. Footage emerged, in 2021, of Hamas fighters digging up the pipes and fashioning them into rockets to launch over the border into Israel. Despite this, the EU...

Faint interest in film glorifying activists bent on violence, destructionJames Cameron caught little heat for a shocking admission. He hearts eco-terrorism. It’s one thing for the “Avatar” director to be so green he makes his cast and crew eat vegan. That seems quaint compared to a quote that got ignored by most press outlets. Now, we have an entire film dedicated to eco-activists willing to employ violence to suit their needs. And it’s clear where the story’s empathy lies. “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” deserves some sort of Truth in Advertising award. The story follows a gang of eco-thugs...

The question of who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines is likely to remain an unsolved mystery for some time.Even as new details surface from European investigators, one of the most intriguing clues to recently emerge comes not from official probes but via a 29-year-old open-source analyst based in Denmark. Oliver Alexander spent months analyzing data from the maritime Automatic Identification System, or AIS, from vessels that passed near the site of three out of the four pipeline ruptures shortly before the damage. He noticed that the Minerva Julie, a 600-foot Greek-flagged tanker, was headed east from Rotterdam when, on...

America’s “inability to build things” is crippling it, the economics writer Noah Smith wrote in a blog published on Monday. The “things” he’s referring to are housing, transit, solar power, transmission lines, semiconductor production, you name it. They’re being stalled because of permitting and development rules in particular but the NIMBY (or “not-in-my-backyard”) crew in general. Smith is a well-known economics commentator, but his “bit of a rant” struck a chord with many on Twitter, including its CEO, Elon Musk. Smith’s blog post, on his personal Substack, stresses that America used to be unwilling to spend on building things, but...