The study showed that Russia sends large volumes of natural gas simply into the air. The station, located near the border with Finland, burns about $10 million worth of gas every day.
BBC News writes about it.
An analysis by Rystad Energy showed that Russians flare about 4.34 million cubic meters of gas every day. The fuel comes from the new Portova liquefied natural gas plant, located near the compressor station at the beginning of the “Northern Stream-1” gas pipeline. Through it, gas is transported by sea to Germany. The German ambassador to Great Britain, Miguel Berger, noted that Russia is doing this because it cannot sell gas elsewhere.
Satellite images of the NASA fire monitoring system showed that flames have been burning at the Portova compressor station of the Russian company “Gazprom” every day since June 17. Residents of the Virolahti municipality in Finland also reported that they saw a fire raging across the Russian border.
While gas flaring is common at processing plants — usually for technical or safety reasons — the scale of Russiaʼs gas flaring has baffled experts.
"I have never seen a LNG torch burn like that. Weʼve had this huge spike since about June, and it just hasnʼt gone away. It remained anomalously high," noted Dr. Jessica McCarthy, a satellite data expert at Miami University in Ohio.
Capterio CEO Mark Davis believes these outbreaks are no accident. In his opinion, this is a deliberate decision made for operational reasons.
"Operators are very often reluctant to actually close facilities for fear that they might be technically difficult or expensive to start up, and thatʼs probably the case here," he told reporters.
Presumably, the Russian “Gazprom” intended to use this gas for production at the new plant. The Russians might be in trouble, so they had the safest option — to burn him at the torch.
It could also be the result of Europeʼs trade embargo in response to Russiaʼs war in Ukraine.
"Such a long burn may mean that they are missing some equipment," stated Esa Vakkilainen, a professor of energy engineering at Finlandʼs LUT University .
"So, because of the trade embargo, they canʼt make the high-quality fittings they need to process oil and gas. Maybe some valves are broken and they canʼt replace them,” he added.
"While the exact causes of the flaring are unknown, the volume, emissions and location of the flaring are a visible reminder of Russiaʼs dominance of Europeʼs energy markets," Rystad Energyʼs Sindre Knutsson stated.
Scientists are concerned about the large amounts of carbon dioxide and soot that appear in the air — they can increase the melting of the Arctic ice. After all, in addition to the daily release of about 9 000 tons of CO2 from this flare, the burning causes other significant problems. As a result of incomplete gas combustion, soot particles move in the air.
"Of particular concern when burning in arctic latitudes is the movement of soot northward, where it settles on snow and ice and greatly accelerates melting," said Matthew Johnson, a professor at Carleton University in Canada.
- Since June 16, “Gazprom” has reduced supplies of the “Nord Stream” gas pipeline to 40% of the nominal capacity, explaining this by the fact that Canada, due to sanctions, did not return the turbine needed for the gas pipeline. Canada made an exception to the sanctions against Russia, repaired the turbine and sent it to Germany, but Russia has not yet taken it back. Against this background, Russiaʼs “Gazprom” reduced gas supplies through “Nord Stream” to 20% of the pipeʼs capacity.
- Researchers from NASAʼs Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced on August 11 that Antarcticaʼs ice shelves are melting twice as fast as expected. Nature does not have time to restore the ice.