On the night watch – POLITICO

It’s an hour before dawn breaks over the North Sea. Aboard the KV Bergen, the officer of the watch is wide awake. 

The 93-meter long Norwegian Navy Coast Guard vessel is on patrol, 50 miles out to sea. The sky is dark, the sea darker. But off the starboard bow, bright lights gleam through the rain and mist. Something huge and incongruous is looming out of the water, lit like a Christmas display.  

“Troll A,” says Torgeir Standal, 49, the ship’s second in command, who is taking the watch on this bleak March morning. 

It’s a gas platform — a big one.  

When it was transported out to this desolate spot nearly 30 years ago, Troll A — stretching 472 meters from its seabed foundations to the tip of its drilling rig — became the tallest structure ever moved by people across the surface of the Earth. Last year, Troll, the gas field it taps into, provided 10 percent of the EU’s total supply of natural gas — heating homes, lighting streets, fueling industry. 

“There are many platforms here,” says Standal, standing on the dark bridge of the Bergen, his face illuminated by the glow from the radar and satellite screens on his control panel. “And thousands of miles of pipeline underneath.” 

And that’s why the Bergen has come to this spot today. 

In September 2022, an explosion on another undersea gas pipeline nearly 600 miles away shook the world. Despite three ongoing investigations, there is still no official answer to the question of who blew up the Nord Stream pipe. But the fact that it could happen at all triggered a Europe-wide alert.

^{The Norwegian Navy’s KV Bergen, seen in the background, after departing from the port of Bergen}

Against a backdrop of growing confrontation with Moscow over its brutal invasion of Ukraine and its willingness to use energy as a weapon, the vulnerability of the undersea pipes and cables that deliver gas, electricity and data to the Continent — the vital arteries of comfortable, modern European life — has been starkly exposed. 

In response, Norway, alongside NATO allies, increased naval patrols in the North Sea — an area vital for Europe’s energy security. The presence of the Bergen, day and night, in these unforgiving waters, is part of the effort to remain vigilant. The task of the men and women on board is to keep watch on behalf of Europe — and to stop the next Nord Stream attack before it happens. 

The officers of the watch 

But what are they looking for? 

In recent weeks the Bergen has tracked the movements of a Russian military frigate through the North Sea — something that it has to do “several times every year,” says Kenneth Dyb, 47, the skippsjef, or commander of the ship. 

The Russians have a right to sail through these seas out to the Atlantic, and it is very unlikely Moscow would be so brazen as to openly attack a gas platform or a pipeline. But, says Dyb, as his ship steams west to another gas and oil field, Oseberg, “it’s important to show that we are present. That we are watching.” 

Recent reports that Russian naval ships — with their trackers turned off — were present near the site of the Nord Stream blasts in the months running up to the incident have reinforced the importance of having extra eyes on the water itself. 

^{The Oseberg oil and gas field, 130 kilometers north-west of Bergen}

Of course, the gas didn’t come for free. Norway has profited hugely from the spike in gas and oil prices that followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The state-owned energy giant Equinor made a record $75 billion profit in 2022. Oslo is sensitive to accusations of war profiteering — and keen to show Europe that it cares about its neighbors’ energy security as much as it cares about their cash. 

But the threat to the pipelines could also be more low-key. One of the many theories about the Nord Stream attack is that it was carried out by a small group of divers, operating from an ordinary yacht. In such a scenario, something as seemingly innocent as a ship suddenly going stationary, or following an unaccustomed course through the water, could be suspicious. The Bergen’s crew have the authority to board and inspect vessels that its crew consider a cause for concern.  

Russia’s covert presence in these waters has been acknowledged by Norway’s intelligence services in recent weeks. A joint investigation by the public broadcasters in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland uncovered evidence of civilian vessels, such as fishing ships, being used for surveillance activities. This is something that has been “going on forever,” according to Ståle Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, but it has increased in intensity in recent years. 

“We always look for oddities, anything that is unusual, like new ships in the area that have not been here before,” says Magne Storebø, 26, senior petty officer, as he takes the afternoon watch on the bridge later that day. 

The sky is leaden and the horizon lost in cloud. Coffee in hand, Storebø casts his eye over the radar and satellite screens as giant windscreen wipers whip North Sea spray from the floor-to-ceiling windows. There are few ships around, all of them familiar to the crew; service vessels plying back and forth from the gas and oil platforms. 

The Nord Stream incident and the new security situation has changed the way Storebø thinks about his work, he says. 

He is “more aware of the consequences suspicious vessels could have,” he says. “More awake, you could say.”   

Soft-spoken and calm beyond his years, Storebø is philosophical about the potential dangers of his work. He has been in the Navy for four years, in which time war has broken out on the European continent and the threat to his home waters has come into sharp focus. 

 “If you are going to put a rainy cloud over your head and bury yourself down, I don’t think the Navy or the coastguard is the right place to work in,” he says in conversation with two shipmates later that day. “You need to adjust and to look in a positive direction — and to be ready in case things don’t go that way.” 

Energy war round two 

As Europe emerges from the first winter of its energy war with Russia, its gas supplies have held up better than almost anyone expected. 

But as the Continent braces for next winter, the risk of another Nord Stream-style attack to a key pipeline is taken seriously at the highest levels of leadership. 

“Things look OK for gas security now,” said one senior European Commission official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters of energy security. “But if Norway has a pipeline that blows up, we are in a different situation.” 

EU policymakers see four key risks to gas security going into next winter, the senior official added: exceptionally cold weather; a stronger-than-expected Chinese economic recovery hoovering up global gas supply; Russia cutting off the remaining gas it sends to Europe; and last but not least, an “incident” affecting energy infrastructure. 

Such an event might not only threaten supply but could potentially spark panic in the gas market, as seen in 2022, driving up prices and hitting European citizens and industries in the wallet. And nowhere is the potential for harm greater than in the North Sea. 

Norway is now Europe’s biggest single supplier of gas. After Russian President Vladimir Putin and the energy giant Gazprom shut off supply via Nord Stream and other pipelines, Norway stepped up its own production in the North Sea, delivering well over 100 billion cubic meters to the EU and the U.K. in 2022. European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen visited Troll A herself in March this year — the first visit of a Commission president to Norway since 2011 — to personally thank the country’s president, Jonas Gahr Støre, for supplies that “helped us through the winter.” 

“We have a huge responsibility, supplying the rest of Europe with energy,” Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram told POLITICO. “To be a stable, reliable producer of energy, of gas, is an important role for us and we take that very seriously. That is why we are also doing so much to protect this infrastructure.” 

The vast majority of that gas is transported into northwest Europe via a complex network of seabed pipes — more than 5,000 miles of them in Norway’s jurisdiction alone. The North Sea has an average depth of just 95 meters. That’s not much deeper than the Nord Stream pipes at the location they were attacked.  

“It actually doesn’t take a particularly sophisticated capability to attack a pipeline in relatively shallow waters,” says Sidharth Kaushal, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K.A small vessel, “some divers and an [explosive] charge” are all it could take, Kaushal says. 

The navy chief 

After the Nord Stream incident in September, suspicion instantly fell on Russia. Moscow has a record of operating in the so-called gray zone — committing hostile acts short of warfare, often covertly.  

To date, the three investigations looking into the incident have yet to confirm that suspicion. But European governments — and their militaries — are not taking any chances. 

In the days immediately following the explosions, NATO navy chiefs started calling each other to try to coordinate efforts to protect energy infrastructure, says Rune Andersen, the chief of Norway’s navy, speaking to POLITICO at Haakonsvern naval base, before the KV Bergen’s voyage. 

Everyone had the same thought, he says. “If that happens in the North Sea, we will have a problem.”  

Andersen joined the Navy as a young man in 1988, in the last days of the Cold War. Now 54, he is used to the Russian threat overshadowing Norway’s and Europe’s security. 

“After decades of attempts to integrate or cooperate with Russia, we now have war in Europe. We see that our neighbor is brutal and willing to use military force,” he says grimly. “I worked in the Navy in the ’90s when it was enduring peace and partnership on the agenda. We are back to a situation where our job feels more meaningful — and necessary.” 

However, he points out, his own forces have so far not seen any Russian movements or operations “that are different to what they were before” the Nord Stream attacks. “The job we are doing is precautionary, rather than tailored to any specific threat,” he adds. 

Even so, those early discussions with NATO allies have now formalized into daily coordination via the Allied Maritime Command headquarters in the U.K., to ensure there are always NATO ships on hand that can act as “first responders” to potential incidents. British, German and French ships have joined their Norwegian counterparts in the monitoring and surveillance effort. 

It is “by nature challenging” to protect every inch of pipeline, all of the time, Andersen says. 

The role of the Bergen and ships like it, he adds, is just “one bit of the puzzle.” Simply by their presence at sea, these ships increase the chances of catching would-be saboteurs in the act, and hopefully deter them from trying in the first place.  

The goal, in other words, is to reduce the size of the “gray zone” — or to “increase the resolution” of the navy’s picture of the activity out on the North Sea, as Andersen puts it. 

In collaboration with the energy companies and pipeline operators, unmanned underwater vehicles — drones — using cameras and high-resolution sonar have been used, Andersen says, to “map the micro-terrain” around pipelines. These are sensitive enough to spot an explosive charge or other signs of foul play. 

Equinor, alongside the pipeline operator Gassco, has carried out a “large inspection survey” of its undersea pipeline infrastructure, a company spokesperson says. The survey revealed “no identified signs of malicious activities” but pipeline inspections are ongoing “continuously.” 

Perhaps understandably, the heightened level of alert has led to the occasional false alarm. A spate of aerial drone sightings near Norwegian energy infrastructure around the time of the Nord Stream attacks last year included a report of a suspicious craft circling above Haakonsvern naval base itself. 

“After a while, we concluded it was a seagull,” says Andersen, with the shadow of a grin.  

Europe on alert 

The navy chief is nonetheless deadly serious about the potential threat. A Nord Stream-style attack in the North Sea is possible. Anderson will not be drawn on the most vulnerable points in the network, saying only that “easy to access” places and “key hubs” are “two things in the back of mind when we think [about] risk.” 

Throughout Europe, the alert has been raised. This month, NATO warned of a “significant risk” that Russia could target undersea pipelines or internet cables as part of its confrontation with the West. 

Several countries are increasing patrols and underwater surveillance capabilities. The British Royal Navy accelerated the purchase of two specialist ocean surveillance ships, the first of which will be operational this summer. The EU and NATO have established a new joint task force focusing on critical infrastructure protection, and a “coordination cell” has been established at NATO headquarters in Brussels to improve “engagement with industry and bring key military and civilian stakeholders together” to keep the cables and pipelines secure. 

Norway — and Europe — are in this struggle for the long haul, Andersen believes.  

Indeed, even as Europe transitions from fossil fuels to green energy, the North Sea will remain a vital powerhouse of offshore wind energy, with plans for a huge expansion over the next 25 years. Earlier this year, the Netherlands’ intelligence services reported a Russian ship seeking to map wind farm infrastructure in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. “We think the Russians wanted to investigate the possibilities for potential future sabotage,” Jan Swillens, head of the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service tells POLITICO in an emailed statement. “This incident makes clear that these kinds of Russian operations are performed closer than one might think.” 

At the same time in the Baltic, countries are shoring up security around their infrastructure, at sea and on land. Late last year, Estonia carried out an underwater inspection of the two Estlink power cables and the Baltic Connector gas pipeline linking it to Finland, the Estonian navy says. Lithuania, meanwhile, is paying “special attention” to security around its LNG terminal at Klaipėda and the gas cargoes that arrive there, a defense ministry spokesperson says. 

It was in Lithuania that Europe had its first major false alarm since the Nord Stream incident, when a gas pipeline on land exploded on a Friday evening in January. Foul play was briefly considered a possibility in the immediate aftermath but was quickly ruled out. The pipe was 40 years old, and had been subject to a technical fault. 

The danger posed by Russia to infrastructure throughout Europe should not be underestimated, says Vilmantas Vitkauskas, director of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre and a former NATO intelligence official. 

“We know their way of thinking, [the way] they send signals or apply pressure,” Vitkauskas says. “We understand Russia quite well, and we are quite worried by what we see — and how vulnerable our infrastructure is in Europe.” 

The watchers on the water 

Back aboard the Bergen, life for the sailors carries on as normal. It’s a young crew, with an average age of around 30. Some are conscripts. It’s still compulsory in Norway for 19-year-olds to present themselves for national service, but only around one in four are actually recruited for the mandated 19-month stint.   

The days are long. Surveillance, maintenance and exercises in search and rescue are all part of the crew’s regular routine. A helicopter from one of the Oseberg oil and gas platforms soars overhead, and the crew are drafted into an exercise winching people on and off the deck of the Bergen in the dead of night, simulating a rescue operation. 

The ship needs to be ready to respond to an incident should the call come in from naval headquarters that help is required, or a suspicious vessel has been identified in their patch of the North Sea. But in their downtime, the sailors head to the gym on the lower deck, or play FIFA on the X-box in the sparse games room. Three hearty meals a day are served in the galley kitchen. There is even a ship’s band, cheekily named “Dyb Purple” after their commander. Dyb “takes it well,” says Senior Petty Officer Storebø. 

In the daily whirl of activity, most of the young sailors don’t think of their work in the grand strategic sense of protecting the energy security — the warmth, the light, the industry — of an entire continent. 

But the context of the Ukraine war — and the precedent set by the Nord Stream attack — has added a note of solemnity just below the surface of the comradeship and bonhomie. 

“We are probably less naïve nowadays,” says 33-year-old Senior Petty Officer Simen Strand, who has a wife and two children, a boy and a girl, back home in Bergen. “We haven’t had much to fear in the past, there hasn’t been a concrete threat.” 

Storebø agrees but is characteristically sanguine. “Russia has always been there … I’ve not personally felt any more unease than before.” 

The next day, Storebø has the night watch, from midnight to four in the morning, as the Bergen travels back to base for a short stop before heading out to sea again.  

It’s dark up on the bridge, with the glow of the control panel screens the only light inside. Twenty miles away, little lights can be seen on the Norwegian coast. A lighthouse flares to the south, at Slåtterøy, not far from Storebø’s home island of Austevoll. Beneath the waves, unseen, gas flows from the Troll field back to the mainland, where it is processed. From there, it continues its journey south to light the dark of European nights.  

All is quiet but Storebø can’t afford to lose focus. “Coffee and music help,” he says. “I like the night shifts.”  

As the officer of the watch, he has to be ready, should the radar, the satellites, or his own eyes see something out of the ordinary — ready to call the captain and raise the alarm. 

That’s the job, he says. “You always have it in the back of your mind.”