Denmark’s electricity and gas grid operator on Thursday lowered its vigilance level, which had been raised considerably after sabotage hit the Nord Stream gas pipelines off the Danish coast in late September.
The vigilance level has now been reduced to “green”, its second lowest level, after it was already lowered one step, from “orange” to “yellow” at the end of October, Energinet said in a statement.
The move followed a request from the Danish Energy Agency to lower the vigilance level after “an analysis of the threat level”, the grid operator explained.
Four large gas leaks were discovered on Nord Stream’s two pipelines off the Danish island of Bornholm at the end of September, with seismic institutes recording two underwater explosions just prior.
While the leaks were in international waters, two of them were in the Danish exclusive economic zone and two in Sweden’s.
Investigations by Danish and Swedish authorities have confirmed the leaks were due to sabotage and experts have said that only a state has the means to carry out such an operation.
But investigations have not identified who was responsible.
In early November, Moscow accused Britain of “directing and coordinating” the explosions.
The accusation was rejected as “distractions which are part of the Russian playbook” by a spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Although the pipelines were not in operation when the leaks occurred, they both still contained gas which spewed up through the water and into the atmosphere.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store announced at the end of November that they had launched an initiative within NATO to better protect maritime infrastructures.
