Carmichael highlights Russian “ghost fleet” risk to UK energy in Parliament

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has today in Parliament highlighted concerns about the risk posed to UK undersea energy infrastructure from the Russian “ghost fleet”; vessels controlled by the Russian state but sailing under the flag of other states. Such vessels have been implicated both in the illegal sale of Russian oil and gas in contravention of international sanctions, and in recent damage to subsea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. 

Speaking in the debate, Mr Carmichael said:

“If we are going to deploy more resource at sea—and obviously, I think we should—we have to take the question of cable security seriously. 

“We have to look at what happened just before Christmas, when the Russian so-called ghost fleet cut the cable going into the south of Finland. We know that Russia has had some activity, which we believe to be malign, in the UK continental shelf, so let us get ahead of the game and take that seriously.

“The placing of cables on the seabed will only become more significant. I recently met Xlinks, which is bringing a significant amount of solar energy from Morocco to the United Kingdom via a subsea cable, which it is burying as it goes. It is at these points that we realise that with every opportunity there is a threat, and we must take the threats seriously. That is not within the Minister’s purview, but at the end of the day it has to be part of the way that we approach the outcomes.”