Russia's Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines will be sealed and preserved, as there are no plans to repair them or put them into operation in the near future.

 This is reported by Reuters.

 Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, each consisting of two strands, were built by state-controlled Gazprom to pump 110 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year to Germany at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

 Three pipes were damaged by explosions in September 2022, and one of the Nord Stream 2 pipes remained intact.

 But the sharp rise in tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia's invasion of Ukraine had already led to the shutdown of Nord Stream 1 and prevented the launch of Nord Stream 2 in February.

 Gazprom has said it is technically possible to repair the pipelines, but two sources familiar with the plans said Moscow does not see much prospect of improving relations with the West in the near future enough to warrant the pipelines.

 Europe has sharply reduced energy imports from Russia over the past year, while Gazprom's exports outside the former Soviet Union nearly halved in 2022 and reached a post-Soviet low of 101 billion cubic meters.

 One Russian source said that Russia considers the project "buried". Two others said that while there were no plans to repair the pipelines, they would at least be preserved for possible reactivation in the future. Another source familiar with the plans confirmed that interested parties are considering retention.

This will most likely mean sealing the broken ends and coating the pipes to prevent further corrosion from seawater.

 One Russian source said that if U.S. marine liquefied natural gas (LNG), which Europe uses to offset some of its supplies to Russia, becomes much more expensive, Europe may again be willing to buy more from Russia.

 Nord Stream 1 has in any case been idle since the end of August, when it was shut down for maintenance but never resumed operation as Russia and the West sparred over turbine maintenance amid Western sanctions.

 Construction of the similarly sized Nord Stream 2 was completed in September 2021, but it ran into problems after German regulators refused to certify it. Berlin then froze the project days before Moscow invaded Ukraine on February 24 last year.

 Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed using the intact Nord Stream 2 branch to pump gas, but Germany, which is keen to end its dependence on Russia, has rejected the idea. Poland also stopped buying Russian gas.

 Currently, Russia exports only about 40 million cubic meters of pipeline gas per day to Europe through Suja on the border between Ukraine and Slovakia.

 Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow, which hopes to establish a gas hub in Turkey instead of the Baltic route, will no longer rely on the West as an energy partner.

 We will remind you that German investigators are sure that the Russians blew up Nord Stream in September 2022