Utopia Talk / Politics / Italian pipeline sabotaged

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Sat Apr 11 16:56:35 Attack on oil pipeline in Italy threatened fuel supplies across southern Germany Police are investigating whether the attack was politically motivated. April 10, 2026 5:58 pm CET By Philipp Vetter and Daniel Wetzel BERLIN — An attack on an oil pipeline in northern Italy put the supply of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel to southern Germany at risk in late March, according to information obtained by Business Insider and WELT AM SONNTAG. The incident meant crude oil supply to Miro, Germany’s largest refinery near Karlsruhe, via the Transalpine Pipeline was interrupted for several days. “We received no crude oil through the TAL pipeline for three days, until around 2 a.m. on March 30, and had to rely on our existing crude oil stocks,” a spokeswoman from the Miro refinery confirmed. The Bayernoil refinery was also affected by the outage. Its sites in Neustadt and Vohburg, in Bavaria, likewise had to bridge the three-day disruption by drawing on local storage reserves. According to the information obtained by WELT AM SONNTAG and Business Insider, which are — like POLITICO — part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, the pipeline failure was caused by an attack on the power supply of a pumping station near Terzo di Tolmezzo in the Italian Alps. Two people with knowledge of the matter confirmed that the outage was an act of sabotage. German authorities were reportedly informed about the incident by their Italian counterparts. “The Federal Criminal Police Office is in contact with the Italian authorities regarding this incident,” a spokesperson for Germany’s Interior Ministry told WELT AM SONNTAG and Business Insider. Whether the case involved a politically motivated attack on critical infrastructure, the ministry said, “is the subject of the ongoing investigations by the Italian authorities.” The local police station responsible for the Carnia mountain communities confirmed that the damaged power pole is located in the village of Terzo di Tolmezzo. “Crimes of this kind are investigated directly by the Udine police headquarters through the local police station in Tolmezzo,” a spokesperson said. The police commissioner’s office in Tolmezzo, which is handling the matter, declined to comment. The public prosecutor’s office for the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Udine did not respond to inquiries. The company operating the TAL pipeline did not comment on the cause of the outage, and Terna, the power grid operator in northern Italy, also declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Miro refinery stressed that during the pipeline outage, “all products remained fully available.” There had been no disruption to filling station supplies, she said. It remains unclear how much longer the refinery could have continued operating from its on-site tank storage alone. Now that the pumping station has been repaired, Miro is “gradually rebuilding its crude oil inventories.” According to the company, the refinery supplies 10 million people every day with fuels and heating oil, and also provides district heating to thousands of households in Karlsruhe. Statistically, Miro’s products cover around 45 percent of Baden-Württemberg’s total primary energy demand. The incident underscores the vulnerability of critical infrastructure in Germany’s energy supply system. “In general, critical infrastructures — particularly in the energy sector — face an elevated abstract threat level,” the Interior Ministry spokesperson said. The attack on the pipeline came at a sensitive moment for Germany. Fuels and natural gas are not yet in short supply, however bottlenecks in jet fuel supplies for airlines are already beginning to emerge. Shortages of diesel — especially important for transport and industry — also cannot be ruled out if Iran continues not to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Germany relies on imports for around 36 percent of its diesel supply. Because of sharply rising global market prices, part of the fuel produced in Germany and Europe is already being exported to Asia, where prices are significantly higher. https://ww...plies-across-southern-germany/

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