OREANDA-NEWS The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom began on Thursday to conduct a state inspection of the Eagle S tanker suspected of damaging the EstLink 2 Estonian-Finnish electric cable.

"State control reveals whether the vessel complies with the requirements of international conventions," Traficom said in a press release.

"The inspection is very comprehensive. Firstly, the relevance of the ship's documents and supporting documents is checked. After that, we proceed to check the technology and working methods. A visual inspection will be carried out," said Traficom Marine Director Sanna Sonninen. The inspection will also get acquainted with the load on the crew.

Tracifom notes that the inspection may take several days.

If serious deficiencies are found, Traficom can stop the operation of the vessel until they are fixed. The results of the audit will be announced after it is completed.

Finnish police suspect that an Eagle S flying the flag of the Cook Islands damaged an electric cable with an anchor between Estonia and Finland with a capacity of 658 megawatts on December 25. It supplied Estonia with most of the electricity imported from Finland.

The ship was heading from St. Petersburg to Egypt. Its crew consists of 24 people - citizens of Georgia and India. According to media reports, all of them are on board the ship. Seven of them are banned from leaving the country.

Finnish and Estonian energy companies estimate that it may take up to seven months and tens of millions of euros to repair the cable, and the Estonian energy company Eesti Energia has already announced that it plans to raise prices for fixed electricity packages.