- Joined
- Mar 22, 2015
- Location
- Untied States of America
Germany has started to pour concrete on a Russian gas pipeline that risks dividing the EU and harming its energy security.
The construction began in Lubmin, on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, on Thursday (3 May) by laying foundations for a terminal that will receive 55bn cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline when it goes online in 2020.
"We are moving within the framework of the planning approval decision," a spokesman for Gazprom, the Russian firm behind the project, told German press agency DPA.
"We are confident that we will receive all relevant permits," the spokesman said.
The Baltic pipeline is to run from Russia via the maritime zones of Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Finland recently granted a permit, with the other two pending.
Its opponents, including Poland, the Baltic states, and Nordic EU countries, have said Nord Stream 2 would help Russia to cut gas supplies to Western allies, including Ukraine, for strategic reasons.
The European Commission has said it could help Gazprom to gouge even higher prices in eastern Europe.
The US has also said it would make a mockery of Western sanctions on Russia, imposed over its invasion of Ukraine four years ago.
Next steps for the Russian project include the laying and welding of 200,000 pipe segments, each one weighing 24 tonnes, along 1,200 km of the Baltic Sea bed.
The pipes are already waiting in storage yards in Germany, Finland, and Sweden in a €9bn enterprise that includes five major EU firms and 200 other companies in 17 European countries, creating, Gazprom says, 1,000 jobs.
https://euobserver.com/foreign/141756
The construction began in Lubmin, on Germany's Baltic Sea coast, on Thursday (3 May) by laying foundations for a terminal that will receive 55bn cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline when it goes online in 2020.
"We are moving within the framework of the planning approval decision," a spokesman for Gazprom, the Russian firm behind the project, told German press agency DPA.
"We are confident that we will receive all relevant permits," the spokesman said.
The Baltic pipeline is to run from Russia via the maritime zones of Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Finland recently granted a permit, with the other two pending.
Its opponents, including Poland, the Baltic states, and Nordic EU countries, have said Nord Stream 2 would help Russia to cut gas supplies to Western allies, including Ukraine, for strategic reasons.
The European Commission has said it could help Gazprom to gouge even higher prices in eastern Europe.
The US has also said it would make a mockery of Western sanctions on Russia, imposed over its invasion of Ukraine four years ago.
Next steps for the Russian project include the laying and welding of 200,000 pipe segments, each one weighing 24 tonnes, along 1,200 km of the Baltic Sea bed.
The pipes are already waiting in storage yards in Germany, Finland, and Sweden in a €9bn enterprise that includes five major EU firms and 200 other companies in 17 European countries, creating, Gazprom says, 1,000 jobs.
https://euobserver.com/foreign/141756
