Experts say the plant near the border with Finland burns $10m (£8.4m) worth of gas every day, amid growing concerns about large amounts of carbon dioxide, which will worsen melting ice in the Arctic.
Analysis by Rystad Energy indicates that about 4.34 million cubic meters of gas are flared each day from a new LNG plant in Portovaya, northwest of Saint Petersburg.
Supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline have been curtailed since mid-July, with the Russians blaming the restrictions, and Germany saying it was a purely political move in the wake of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
Although gas flaring is common in processing plants, the extent of this flaring has confused experts.
“Starting around June, we saw this huge peak, and it didn’t completely go away, it just stayed very high,” said Dr Jessica McCarty, an expert in satellite data from the University of Miami in Ohio.
Mark Davis, chief executive of Captero, a company involved in gas flaring solutions, says the flaring was not accidental and likely a deliberate decision made for operational reasons.
“Operators are often very reluctant to physically close facilities out of fear that it will be technically or financially difficult to get them operating again, and that may be the case here,” he added.
Some believe that there may be technical challenges in handling the large volumes of gas supplied to the Nordstream pipeline.
“This kind of long-term incineration could mean that the Russians are missing some equipment,” says Issa Vakilainen, professor of energy engineering at Finland’s LUT University.
“So, because of the trade embargo with Russia, they are not able to make the high-quality valves needed for oil and gas processing, there may be some valves that are broken and they can’t replace them,” he added.
Sinder Knutson of Rystad Energy said, “While the exact causes of the burning are unknown, this is evidence that Russia has an active role in European energy markets.”
Energy prices around the world rose sharply with the coronavirus lockdown, and rose again in February, after the Ukraine war.
According to the researchers, burning is much better than simply venting methane, which is the main component in the gas, and is a very strong factor in global warming.
Black carbon is the name given to the sooty particles that are produced through the incomplete combustion of fuels such as natural gas.
Professor Matthew Johnson, from Carleton University in Canada, said: ‘Of particular concern about combustion in Arctic latitudes is the northward transport of emitted black carbon where it is deposited on ice and accelerates melting dramatically.
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