On 26 September 2022, the NS1 pipeline experienced multiple large pressure drops to almost zero, attributed to three as of yet unexplained underwater explosions in international waters,[clarification needed][2] rendering three of their four pipes inoperable.

[19] All information related to the pipeline project, including results of the seabed survey of 1998, was transferred from North Transgas to Nord Stream AG.

[23][24] In March 2007, Nord Stream AG hired Italian company Snamprogetti, a subsidiary of Saipem, for detailed design engineering of the pipeline.

[42] In February 2010, the Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland issued the final environmental permit allowing construction of the Finnish section of the pipeline.

[45] [46] The first pipe of the pipeline was laid in April 2010 in the Swedish exclusive economic zone by the Castoro Sei vessel, which continued to lay most of the distance.

[56][57][58] During a routine annual checkup in November 2015, a small, remotely operated armed mine-disposal vehicle was found lying near the pipeline near the Öland island in the Baltic Sea.

[67][68] The rupturing of the Nord Stream pipelines happened as the Baltic Pipe was being opened for natural gas to come in from the North Sea through Denmark to Poland.

The Yuzhno-Russkoye field, which is located in the Krasnoselkupsky District, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Tyumen Oblast, was designated as the main source of natural gas for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

[112][113][114][115][116] Opponents have seen the pipeline as a move by Russia to bypass traditional transit countries (currently Ukraine, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Belarus, and Poland).

Critics of Nord Stream say that Europe has become dangerously dependent on Russian natural gas, particularly since Russia could face problems meeting a surge in domestic as well as foreign demand.

[120][121][122] Some argue that Nordstream is an effort "to build expensive export infrastructure where the costs are unlikely to be recoverable all in order to avoid running gas supplies through transit states.

[127] A Swedish Defense Research Agency study, finished in March 2007, counted over 55 incidents[clarification needed][vague] since 1991, most with "both political and economic underpinnings".

[128] In his book The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West, published in 2008, Edward Lucas stated, "though Nord Stream's backers insist that the project is business pure and simple, this would be easier to believe if it were more transparent".

[121] In a report published by the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in 2008, Norwegian researcher Bendik Solum Whist noted that Nord Stream AG was incorporated in Switzerland, "whose strict banking secrecy laws makes the project less transparent than it would have been if based within the EU".

[132] Swedish military experts and several politicians, including former Minister for Defense Mikael Odenberg, have stated that the pipeline may cause a security policy problem for Sweden.

[133] According to Odenberg, the pipeline motivates the Russian Navy's presence in the Swedish economic zone, and Russia could use this for gathering military intelligence, if desired.

[135] More political concerns were raised when Vladimir Putin stated that the ecological safety of the pipeline project will be ensured by using the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy.

[137] Deputy Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of Gazprom Alexander Medvedev has dismissed these concerns, stating that "some objections are put forward that are laughable – political, military, or linked to spying.

[144][145][146] However, in 2011, the then-prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, as well as several experts, confirmed that the Nord Stream pipeline did not block the development plans of Świnoujście and Szczecin ports.

Since the pressure loss is proportional to the square of the flow velocity, dividing an unchanged gas transport volume between two Nord Stream systems could save around 3⁄4 of the pumping effort and presumably avoid more than 1 million tonnes (2.2 billion pounds) of CO2 emissions annually.

[citation needed] Before construction, there were concerns that during construction the seabed would be disturbed, dislodging World War II-era naval mines and toxic materials including chemical waste, chemical munitions, and other items dumped in the Baltic Sea in the past decades, and thereby toxic substances could surface from the seabed and damage the Baltics' particularly sensitive ecosystem.

[115] Its Finnish branch said it might file a court case against Nord Stream AG if the company did not properly assess a potential alternative route on the southern side of Hogland.

[160] In April 2007, the Young Conservative League (YCL) of Lithuania started an online petition entitled "Protect the Baltic Sea While It's Still Not Too Late!

[163] Concerns were raised, since originally Nord Stream AG planned on rinsing out the pipeline with 2.3 billion litres (610 million US gallons) of a solution containing glutaraldehyde, which would be pumped afterward into the Baltic Sea.

The former Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schröder, and the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, were strong advocates of the pipeline project during the negotiation phase.

On 24 October 2005, a few weeks before Schröder had stepped down as Chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover €1 billion of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan.

This has been widely described by German and international media as a conflict of interest,[173][174][175] the implication being that the pipeline project may have been pushed through for personal gain rather than for improving gas supplies to Germany.

[172] In February 2009, the Swedish prosecutor's office started an investigation based on suspicions of bribery and corruption after a college on the island of Gotland received a donation from Nord Stream.

The 5 million Swedish kronor (US$574,000) donation was directed to a professor at Gotland University College who had previously warned that the Nord Stream pipeline would come too close to a sensitive bird zone.

[182] In May 2008, a former member of the European Parliament from Estonia, Andres Tarand, raised the issue that the Nord Stream pipeline could disturb World War II graves dating from naval battles in 1941.