Shipowner to be taken to court over damage of Finland-Estonia subsea link

Estonian transmission system operator (TSO) Elering and its Finnish counterpart Fingrid have withdrawn the request to seize the ship that broke the EstLink 2 power connection in December 2024 for compensation for damages, and plan to sue the shipowner for compensation for repair costs.

To remind, Fingrid reported to the authorities on December 25, 2024, the failure of Estlink 2, prompting an immediate investigation into the chain of events of the incident as well as whether a foreign ship is involved in the damage.

A day later Finland seized the Cook Islands-flagged tanker Eagle S, which according to initial reports may have had an unsecured anchor, on suspicion the vessel caused the outage and damaged internet lines. Photos of the vessel showed that the hull had been damaged.

Kalle Kilk, Chairman of the Board of Elering, said that the reason for abandoning the seizure claim was the associated unreasonably high costs.

“According to estimates, the cost of keeping the ship under arrest is hundreds of thousands of euros per month, plus the arrest guarantee of one million euros and several other additional costs, as a result of which the costs arising from the arrest may ultimately be greater than the value of the ship. In addition, it is extremely difficult to sell the ship during the litigation,” said Kilk.

The companies plan to sue the shipowner to cover the repair costs. If the investigation finds the crew members guilty, the matter will be handled separately from the compensation for damages in a criminal case.

“It is important for Elering that the damages are compensated and that no one feels that they can destroy the undersea infrastructure with impunity,” Kilk said.

Based on the assessment of a Finnish law firm, the trial could last up to five or six years, so system operators will initially have to cover the costs themselves in order to quickly restore the connection, Elering reported.

Estlink 2, officially launched in 2014 with a capacity of 650 MW, is 170 kilometers long, of which 145 kilometers is submarine cable, 14 kilometers overhead on the Finnish side and 12 kilometers underground in Estonia.

This was not the first time Estlink 2 had been shut down in 2024. Namely, the link was shut down in the first hour of January 26, 2024, due to a fault located in “a geotechnically demanding area” on the Estonian coast which kept it out of operation until August 31.

A couple of months later, a fault was detected in the first electrical connection between the two countries. Estlink 1 was out of service due to a technical fault at the converter station in Espoo. The electrical connection was switched off at 4:26 a.m. on March 9 on the Finnish side, while the power cable remained intact. Operational since 2006, the link has a capacity of 350 MW.

The two TSOs signed a memorandum in June 2022 agreeing to start work on the establishment of Estlink 3. In the summer of 2024, Estonia’s Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (CPTRA) initiated the building permit procedure for what will be the third electricity connection between Estonia and Finland.