Status: 06.09.2021 4:16 p.m.
The construction of the controversial Nord Stream 2 is nearing its end – the last pipes on the seabed still have to be connected. Then the first gas from Russia could be delivered via the pipeline this year.
Construction work on the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is nearing completion. The operating company Nord Stream 2 AG announced that the last pipe has been welded and in the next step will be connected to the part of the gas pipeline that is already in the sea.
Again NDR reports the last pipe segment has also already been laid on the seabed. The laying ship “Fortuna” lowered it into the Baltic Sea 40 kilometers east of the island of Rügen. After the end of the welding work, the lines should be cleaned with the help of robots, and several function tests are planned.
The first gas is to be delivered in 2021
This year – probably in October – gas is to be transported from Russia to Germany for the first time via the 1200-kilometer pipeline. According to NDR, Gazprom plans to deliver more than five billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe through the new pipeline this year. The line that was completed in June will probably be used first.
Construction of Nord Stream 2 began in 2018 – with the aim of completing the pipeline as early as the following year. More than ten billion euros flowed into the project, through which around 55 billion cubic meters of gas will be transported from Russia to Germany in the future. According to the operating company, this could supply 26 million households.
Years of dispute with the USA
But even before construction began, the second pipeline, which runs parallel to the first two Nord Stream strings, which has been in operation since 2011, was highly controversial.
In January, the then US government under President Donald Trump first imposed sanctions on the Russian company KVT-RUS, to which “Fortuna” belongs. The US justified the move with concerns that Russia could “use natural resources as a means of political pressure and malicious influence against Western Europe”.
The subsequent administration under US President Joe Biden also shared concerns that the gas supplies could become a means of political pressure. It was not until July that Germany and the USA were able to reach an agreement in the dispute: the US government waived further sanctions. Should the Russian government “use energy as a weapon”, both the USA and the Federal Republic would respond with punitive measures.
Ukraine fears for status as a transit country
But Nord Stream 2 is also a controversial topic within Europe. Ukraine, for example, fears that it will lose important income because it will no longer be a transit country for gas deliveries in the future. It was only in July that Chancellor Angela Merkel promised at a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj that Germany would work to ensure that Ukraine remains a transit country in the future.