The $11-billion pipeline, which extends from Russia to Germany across the bottom of the Baltic Sea, will be finished “in the second half of the next year,” Peter Beyer, the government’s Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation, told Deutschlandfunk radio station on Monday.
Washington recently slapped crippling sanctions on сcompanies laying the remaining stretch of the Nord Stream 2 in the Baltic Sea. The penalties were “hardly surprising” although they will cause “a throwback in time” for the project, Beyer acknowledged.
Earlier, it emerged that Allseas, a Dutch-Swiss company installing pipes for the Nord Stream, has withdrawn its pipe-laying ships from the Baltic waters, according to a Bloomberg report.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if the American penalties will be able to jeopardize the entire project. Moscow has given reassurances that the pipeline “will become a reality anyway, despite all these threats,” as will the TurkStream project – another one in Washington’s sanctions legislation.
Some in US-Russian business circles agree with the standpoint. “It’s obvious that the project will be finalized,” Alexis Rodzianko, the president and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, told RIA Novosti.
“Therefore, the sanctions look more like an expression of discontent, I don’t think that they [the US] can somehow stop it. If some fines or penalties are to follow, they will be very unpopular among us allies,” he commented.
US ambassador to Berlin defended American sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline designed to supply the EU with Russian gas as “extremely pro-European” while Berlin condemned the legislation as “interference” in its internal affairs and Moscow threatened to “respond.”
Richard Grenell said: “There are 15 countries, plus the European Commission, plus the European Parliament, that have all voiced concern about the project.”
Adding that “hearing from European diplomats all day today thanking me for taking such action”, on the sanctions, which were signed into law by Mr Trump by last week Friday, were “an extremely pro-European position”.
The US was “very pleased” that Allseas had decided to comply with the sanctions, he added. Nord Stream 2 is a €9.5bn pipeline that would bring natural gas directly from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea.
US President Donald Trump has frequently spoken out against the project that it would increase Germany’s reliance on Russian gas and so turn Europe’s largest economy into a “captive” of Russia.
According to FT, The punitive measures threaten a further deterioration in relations between Berlin and Washington, already damaged by Mr Trump’s constant attacks on Germany’s trade surplus and its failure to meet Nato targets on defence spending.
German finance minister Olaf Scholz described the legislation as “serious interference in Germany and Europe’s internal affairs and our own sovereignty”. “We object to them in the strongest terms,” he told the German TV channel ARD.
Such measures were “incomprehensible and improper for friends that are also linked by our common membership of Nato”, he added.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday warned that Russia would respond to the measures with steps that would not also harm the Russian economy, without elaborating.
Mr Lavrov vowed that the pipeline — and a similar project to pipe gas to Turkey also affected by the sanctions — would be launched regardless of the US decision.
“Europeans understand their commercial interest,” he said. “An interest from the standpoint of providing long-term energy security.”
Sanctions against Nord Stream 2, which Washington justified as a means of protecting Ukraine’s interests, were “particularly hard to understand” in the light of the gas transit deal between Ukraine and Russia, she said.
On the other hand, Ukrainian officials suggested that Gazprom would never have come to terms with Kyiv had it not been for the effect of US sanctions. The legislation “reinforce[d] the talks that we’ve held with Russia on transit of gas to Europe and play a key role in preventing any monopolies in the EU energy market”, Oleksiy Honcharuk, Ukraine’s prime minister, tweeted on Saturday.
Echoing Mr Grenell, he said Ukraine’s rejection of Nord Stream 2 was shared by “many other EU countries, that for the past four years opposed the construction of this politically-motivated project”.
The European Commission is currently analysing the potential impact of these measures on European companies. The Commission’s objective has always been to ensure that Nord Stream II operates in a transparent and non-discriminatory way with the appropriate degree of regulatory oversight, in line with key principles of international and EU energy law.
Critics have said the line will allow Gazprom, Russia’s Kremlin-controlled gas export monopoly, to bypass Ukraine, potentially depriving Kyiv of billions of dollars in transit fees, and weakening the country in its long-running military and political confrontation with Russia.
However, that risk receded last week after Moscow and Kyiv concluded a landmark agreement that would ensure Russian gas continues to transit through Ukraine even after Nord Stream 2 is completed. Germany played a critical role in brokering the agreement and pressuring Russia to maintain Ukraine’s transit status.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev confirmed on Monday that the Ruso-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would be completed in a matter of months and U.S. sanctions imposed on the project last week would not be "catastrophic".
The Russia's new gas transit deal with Ukraine would also mollify the impact on Russian gas supplies of U.S. sanctions introduced on the pipeline project, he said.
Around 160 km (100 miles) of the gas pipeline, which will supply Russian gas to Germany and other European countries, remains to be laid, the consortium behind the project said earlier on Monday.
"Of course we will finish building (the pipeline)... Gazprom has alternative options for how to lay it. It will take a little more time, but that's no big deal," Medvedev told journalists, adding that it could take a couple more months.
"There's nothing catastrophic about (the sanctions), especially considering the fact that we have already reached an agreement with the Ukrainians about transit," Medvedev said.
With Nord Stream 2, Russia has planned to bypass Ukraine with which it has had a number of gas disputes in the past. Over the weekend, Moscow and Kiev managed to prevent another gas conflict, signing a new five-year transit deal days before the existing one expires at the end of 2019.
Medvedev described the tariff terms of the new gas transit deal as suitable for Moscow. "It's a very humane tariff, I would say," he said.
More than 2,300 km of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been laid to date. The pipeline will be about 2,460 km long when completed.
After the sanctions bill was signed on Friday, Nord Stream 2 said it aimed to complete the project but did not provide details.
Russia is exporting gas to Europe via a number of routes, with Ukraine remaining the key one. Two other routes are the Yamal pipeline via Belarus and Nord Stream 1 via the Baltic Sea to Germany. Europe gets over a third of its gas needs from Gazprom.
Nord Stream 2 is aimed at doubling the existing Nord Stream 1's export capacity to a total of 110 billion cubic metres a year. Gazprom has planned to start Nord Stream 2 in the first half of the next year.
Germany is Nord Stream 2's main supporter in western Europe. A member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives said on Monday that sanctions were expected to delay completion of the project by several months and increase its cost.
Medvedev has ordered the Russian government to work out retaliatory measures following U.S. sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Interfax news agency reported on Monday.
The European Commission is currently analysing the potential impact of these measures on European companies. The Commission’s objective has always been to ensure that Nord Stream II operates in a transparent and non-discriminatory way with the appropriate degree of regulatory oversight, in line with key principles of international and EU energy law.
Critics have said the line will allow Gazprom, Russia’s Kremlin-controlled gas export monopoly, to bypass Ukraine, potentially depriving Kyiv of billions of dollars in transit fees, and weakening the country in its long-running military and political confrontation with Russia.
However, that risk receded last week after Moscow and Kyiv concluded a landmark agreement that would ensure Russian gas continues to transit through Ukraine even after Nord Stream 2 is completed. Germany played a critical role in brokering the agreement and pressuring Russia to maintain Ukraine’s transit status.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev confirmed on Monday that the Ruso-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would be completed in a matter of months and U.S. sanctions imposed on the project last week would not be "catastrophic".
The Russia's new gas transit deal with Ukraine would also mollify the impact on Russian gas supplies of U.S. sanctions introduced on the pipeline project, he said.
Around 160 km (100 miles) of the gas pipeline, which will supply Russian gas to Germany and other European countries, remains to be laid, the consortium behind the project said earlier on Monday.
"Of course we will finish building (the pipeline)... Gazprom has alternative options for how to lay it. It will take a little more time, but that's no big deal," Medvedev told journalists, adding that it could take a couple more months.
"There's nothing catastrophic about (the sanctions), especially considering the fact that we have already reached an agreement with the Ukrainians about transit," Medvedev said.
With Nord Stream 2, Russia has planned to bypass Ukraine with which it has had a number of gas disputes in the past. Over the weekend, Moscow and Kiev managed to prevent another gas conflict, signing a new five-year transit deal days before the existing one expires at the end of 2019.
Medvedev described the tariff terms of the new gas transit deal as suitable for Moscow. "It's a very humane tariff, I would say," he said.
More than 2,300 km of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been laid to date. The pipeline will be about 2,460 km long when completed.
After the sanctions bill was signed on Friday, Nord Stream 2 said it aimed to complete the project but did not provide details.
Russia is exporting gas to Europe via a number of routes, with Ukraine remaining the key one. Two other routes are the Yamal pipeline via Belarus and Nord Stream 1 via the Baltic Sea to Germany. Europe gets over a third of its gas needs from Gazprom.
Nord Stream 2 is aimed at doubling the existing Nord Stream 1's export capacity to a total of 110 billion cubic metres a year. Gazprom has planned to start Nord Stream 2 in the first half of the next year.
Germany is Nord Stream 2's main supporter in western Europe. A member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives said on Monday that sanctions were expected to delay completion of the project by several months and increase its cost.
Medvedev has ordered the Russian government to work out retaliatory measures following U.S. sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Interfax news agency reported on Monday.
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