Germany's Wintershall Dea Says Completely Wrote Off Its Share in Nord Stream After Blasts

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - German energy company Wintershall Dea said on Thursday that it had completely written off its share in the Nord Stream project after the blasts at the gas pipelines.

"Due to the geopolitical situation, it is impossible to predict the timing and costs of restoring the gas transmission infrastructure and, consequently, Wintershall Dea has written off its investment in full," the company said in a statement.

In September 2022, underwater blasts occurred at three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 underwater pipelines built to carry a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched separate investigations into the incident.

On February 8, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report saying that US Navy divers had planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines during NATO Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022. Norway activated the bombs three months later, according to the journalist.

The US government has repeatedly denied its involvement in the sabotaging of the Russian pipelines, while the Russian government has demanded an open investigation.