Nordstrom NOT sabotage. How crap Russian maintenance efforts to unplug methane hydrates in cold pipes will generate kinetic forces and explosive spark.

 Forget the conspiracy theories:  Russia, US, Ukraine.  They don't add up. (Update below) This report from Lawdog files, a guy with gas pipeline experience, ticks all the explanation boxes.  As he says, "When anuything involving energy-industry hydrocarbons explodes...well sabotage isn't the first thing that comes to mind.  And honestly, when it comes to a pipeline running natural gas under Russian (non)mantenance, an explosion means that it's Tuesday.  Or Friday.  Or another day of the week ending in "y".  

Until I read his article, I was clueless about the actual baked-in dangers of a natural gas pipeline which we knew was in need of servicing.  We just assumed the servicing was 100% head-fake by Russia to bug the West.

In summary:  The Nordstrom pipelines were idle and and methane hydrates could be triggered to form and some would form into plugs.  Only very slow decompression over weeks from both ends of the pipe would safely lower the pressure for maintenance.  Local efforts to heat and remelt the plug are catastrophically dangerous.  Lowering the pressure from one end of the pipe is has a small chance of working but is likely to cause the plug to break loose at about 200 kmph.  The "diesel effect" on impact at a curvature in the pipe will then generate a flash.  17 hours separated the explosions.  We know there have been maintenance issues and that Russia (think Chernobyl) has a poor track record here.  We know the lines were idle and cooling.   Nobody is claiming responsibility for one of the most expensive industrial wrecks ever.   You can watch his video clip to see how the diesel effect works, producing ignition under impact pressure.  h/t  Instapundit.

Click the link to Instapundit above, not the jpg below.

Also, October 1st an update from LawDog showing the ruptures happened at angles in the pipes.

November 18th the Swedish government says this was definitely sabotage.

The possibility of a screwup should however have been part of the conversation instead of a fixation on what bad actor to blame.    Stupidity and Random Shit  often is a better explanation than Conspiracy.

More deetail:

"During analyzes carried out, residues of explosives have been identified on several of the foreign objects seized," the report said.   Reported at Zero Hedge.