A fire caused by an explosion on a key Russian gas export pipeline that claimed three lives has stopped burning about 24 hours after emergency services were alerted, according to authorities in the country’s Chuvashiya region, said Upstreamonline.
The incident took place near the village of Yambakhtino on a section of the Gazprom-operated Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhgorod trunkline, which carries volumes from the state-controlled company’s core producing fields in West Siberia’s Yamal-Nenets region across Central Russia and Ukraine to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry’s regional office in Chuvashiya said firefighters on site reported that the fire had stopped at about 14:00 local time, a little more than 24 hours after reports of an explosion and fire near Yambakhtino on Monday. Residents voluntarily evacuated their children from the village.
Authorities said seven firefighting units were sent to the site of the fire, which witnesses estimated reached a height of between 25 and 30 metres. The Emergency Situations Ministry’s regional office said one possible cause of the incident involved a safety violation during planned pipeline maintenance.
Russian social media network Mash, which released the names of three contractors who died as a result of the explosion, suggested that maintenance works on the site had extended for at least 12 hours past the deadline for completion.
We remind, Russia's Transneft has received requests from Poland and Germany for oil in 2023, the state oil pipeline monopoly's head told Rossiya-24 TV, adding that supplies via the Druzhba pipeline's southern spur are expected to hold steady next year. The EU has pledged to stop buying Russian oil via maritime routes from Dec. 5, with Western nations also imposing price caps on Russian crude oil, but the Druzhba pipeline remains exempt from sanctions. Transneft's comments are at odds with suggestions last month that Poland aimed to abandon a deal to buy Russian crude.
mrchub.com