Balticconnector and C-Lion1 damage (2023)
On October 8, 2023, the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia and telecom cables were damaged in the Baltic by the dragged anchor of the container ship Newnew Polar Bear.
On the night of October 7 to 8, 2023, pressure dropped in Balticconnector, the 77-kilometer subsea gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia. In the same hours, the telecom cable between Estonia and Sweden was damaged, then faults were found on C-Lion1, which links Finland to Germany. Finnish investigators found an anchor on the seabed, and the drag mark leading to it followed the route of the Newnew Polar Bear, a Hong Kong-flagged container ship. China acknowledged in August 2024 that the ship had caused the damage, by accident, in a storm. The pipeline went back into service on April 22, 2024, after six months. The case came fourteen months before the Eagle S and served as its template: a merchant ship, an anchor, an intent impossible to establish. It also showed the gap between repaired damage and real cost. For six months, Finland relied on the Inkoo floating terminal for its gas, and the price showed it. For insurance, the characterization question comes up as always. Another one is more concrete: who can claim, when the victim is an infrastructure operator and the party at fault is a shipowner with no assets in Europe?
Constructed example, modeled on the case: the operator of a pipeline torn by an anchor claims the repair cost from the shipowner and its P&I club. The club invokes the owner's limitation of liability, calculated on the ship's tonnage and far below the cost of the works. The operator turns to its own property policy, which carries a war and sabotage exclusion: it then has to prove an accident, not an attack.
Balticconnector, C-Lion1, Newnew Polar Bear, Balticconnector pipeline
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