Page 13 - FSUOGM Week 18

FSUOGM POLICY FSUOGM
Germany to deny Nord Stream 2 waiver from EU energy law
GERMANY
The rules would require Gazprom to shed majority control of the pipeline.
GERMAN regulators are due to deny Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline an exemption from legal changes that would require the project to abide by EU energy law.
German energy and infrastructure regulator Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA) plans to reject Gazprom’s application for a waiver from the EU’s gas directive, German business daily Handels- blatt reported last week, citing a copy of the deci- sion. e gas directive was recently amended to apply to gas pipelines running between the bloc and third-party countries such as Russia.
If imposed on Nord Stream 2, the directive would require Gazprom to cede control of the pipeline and ensure third-party gas ow. e Nord Stream 2 operating company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom, sued the Euro- pean Commission over the amendments last year.
Bundesnetzagentur is not due to publish a final decision until later this month. How- ever, Handelsblatt reported that the agency had rejected the waiver request as the pipeline was not completed by May 2019, when the gas directive amendments were introduced. Nord Stream 2 argues that the project should be clas- si ed as having been nished at this point, as it was a nalised investment and construction was already well underway.
“We are aware of the information shared by
the German authoirity, BNetzA, with the par- ticipants in the procedure,” a Nord Stream 2 spokesman told Russia’s TASS news agency. “We do not agree with this conclusion. We will wait for the formal decision of the authority and of course evaluate it and further actions to preserve our rights.”
Nord Stream 2 aims to flow up to 55bn cubic metres per year of Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany. Its launch was orig- inally targeted for the end of 2019, but con- struction fell behind schedule, rst because of Denmark’s delay in issuing permits and sec- ondly because of the US imposing sanctions on the project in December. ese sanctions led to Swiss-based Allseas ceasing all work on the project.
Only 6% of Nord Stream 2’s 2,460 km of o - shore pipelines is le to complete. Unable to tap foreign assistance, Russia is expected to use its own pipelaying vessel to nish the job.
The Gazprom-owned Akademik Cherskiy le the Far East in mid-February and has since travelled across the Asia-Paci c region, around Africa and up into European waters. It was due to arrive on May 3 at the Russian Baltic port of Kaliningrad, ship-tracking data shows. In early February Gazprom selected an unidentified contractor to install welding and technological equipment on the vessel. ™
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