Finland says oil tanker linked to damaged submarine cable had serious defects
HELSINKI (Reuters) – An oil tanker suspected of damaging an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea has been found to have serious flaws and will not be allowed to operate until it is repaired, Finland’s public transport agency said on Wednesday.
The Baltic states are on high alert following a series of outages in power cables, telecommunications lines and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Finnish police seized the Eagle S oil tanker carrying Russian oil on December 26 and said they suspected the ship had damaged the Finland-Estonia Estlink 2 power line and four telecommunications cables by dragging its anchor on the seabed.
News you can trust and daily fun, right in your inbox
Experience it firsthand — The Yodel is your go-to source for daily news, entertainment and light-hearted stories.
While the police investigation is ongoing, Finnish authorities also inspected the ship’s condition during port state inspections that ended on Wednesday.
“Correcting these deficiencies requires maintenance assistance from outside the ship and will take time,” Sanna Sonninen, director of maritime affairs at Traficom, the Finnish Transport and Communications Authority, said in a statement.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki; Editing by Terje Solsvik)
