An explosion on the Al-Jabsah pipeline stops gas reaching Syrian power turbines
The operator says its first findings point to sabotage. No worker was hurt, and no date has been set for the flow to resume.
The Syrian Petroleum Company said an explosion struck the export pipeline carrying gas from the Al-Jabsah plant in the northeast of the country at about 4 in the morning on Tuesday, halting the flow through the line.
It said preliminary investigations indicated the blast was a deliberate act of sabotage, that nobody working at the site was hurt, and that efforts to identify who was behind it are continuing.
Crews shut the wells off, closed the safety valves and secured the area, and repair teams were sent out without delay. The work is to run until gas moves through the pipeline again; no completion date was given.
The interruption reached several of the turbines that generate electricity, and the company said it was drawing on other sources with the state electricity utility to make up what was lost. Neither said how much generating capacity was lost.
That silence is the part that matters to households. A gas line feeding turbines is a link in the electricity supply rather than an export asset alone, so a break in it is felt at the socket, and without a figure or a date there is no way to judge how long or how widely.
The company also said it had begun putting extra security measures in place around oil and gas installations and along transmission pipelines, which reads as an expectation that the line may be struck again.