Drones were reported flying over the North Sea’s Roar gas field over the weekend, Denmark’s National Police confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday.
Roar, located in Danish waters next to the country’s largest gas field Tyra, is operated by French energy company TotalEnergies.
The police statement followed reports last week by TotalEnergies that “unauthorized drone activity” had been spotted over the Halfdan B oil and gas field in the North Sea. Norwegian authorities also reported unusual drone activity over several of its oil and gas fields in the North Sea last week.
Last Monday, Russia’s Gazprom reported leaks in one string of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and both strings of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm following explosions. While neither pipeline was active at the time of the incident, Gazprom said an estimated 800 million cubic meters of stored natural gas had escaped. Denmark and Norway, along with others in the region, have beefed up security in the wake of the incident.
While some Western officials immediately accused Russia of blowing up its own pipelines, Moscow has suggested the US was responsible. Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia pointed out in a UN Security Council meeting that it was only the US – specifically US suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) – who benefited from the sabotage.
In the aftermath of the explosion, former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorsky posted and then deleted a photo of gas escaping from the ruptured Russian pipelines with a caption “thanking” the US.
The day after the apparent act of sabotage took out Nord Stream, the Baltic Pipe, a new pipeline funneling gas from Norway to Poland and Denmark, was opened. While the project had been halted last year, it was green-lighted again in March after Russia began its military offensive in Ukraine.