Operations Other

On 2 March 2025, EstLink 2 co-owners Fingrid Oyj and Elering AS announced that they would waive enforcement of the court-ordered seizure of the Cook Islands-flagged tanker Eagle S, the vessel suspected of severing the EstLink 2 subsea cable on 25 December 2024 by dragging its anchor across the Gulf of Finland seabed. The TSOs concluded that the costs of taking possession and maintaining the tanker — estimated at up to USD 15,000 per day plus securities and berthing fees — would likely exceed the vessel's resale value, and that selling it during a multi-year legal process would be impractical. The waiver does not affect their underlying compensation claims: Fingrid and Elering confirmed they will continue to pursue damages against those responsible for the EstLink 2 cable damage through civil proceedings against the ship's owner, Dubai-based Caravella LLC-FZ. In the interim, the TSOs are funding the repair costs themselves to restore the interconnector to commercial service as quickly as possible. Fingrid CEO Asta Sihvonen-Punkka stated that the operators would continue to seek compensation through legal means for the EstLink 2 cable damage from those responsible. The shift from in-rem seizure to a civil damages action marks a strategic pivot in the cost-recovery effort following the most severe outage in the link's operational history.