Russia is burning off large amounts of natural gas that it previously would have exported to Germany while energy costs soar in Europe, the BBC has reported.
According to BBC News, which cited an analysis by Rystad Energy, a plant near Russia’s border with Finland is burning an estimated £8.4m-worth of gas every day.
Scientists are concerned about the quantities of carbon dioxide and soot that the new liquified natural gas (LNG) plant at Portovaya, north-west of St Petersburg, is creating. The plant is near a compressor station at the start of the Nordstream 1 pipeline, which transports gas to Germany.
Finnish citizens reported seeing a large flame earlier this summer, and researchers have noted a significant increase in heat coming from the facility. While gas flaring is a normal process in the industry, researchers said the scale at which gas is being burned at the plant was unprecedented.
“I’ve never seen an LNG plant flare so much,” Dr Jessica McCarty, an expert on satellite data from Miami University in Ohio, told the broadcaster. “Starting around June we saw this huge peak, and it just didn’t go away. It’s stayed very anomalously high.”