Russian Firemen Extinguish Moscow Gas Blaze

Russian firefighters have now extinguished a gas fire that resulted from a pipeline explosion 135 km outside Moscow early in the morning, Russian media reported some hours later October 20.

The fire was believed to have resulted from a crack in the high-pressure pipeline, they said, based on an initial inspection. There were no reported casualties.

There was no reference to it on the news section of Gazprom's website: the Russian state-controlled company operates all the gas pipelines within Russia.

However, Ukraine's state operator Naftogaz said it would be monitoring the situation, "especially if Russians decide to nominate the increase in their transit volumes via Ukraine. The latest reading of our transit system as of October 18 is at 218.99mn m³/day (roughly about 80bn m³/yr)."

William Powell