Pipeliners

27 October 2008 - New Europe by Kostis Geropoulos - Nord Stream is an offshore pipeline project and it will stay that way, Nord Stream AG spokeswoman Irina Vasilyeva told New Europe from Moscow, dismissing calls to build the pipeline over land. “This is an investment decision taken by the company’s shareholders ... and all the requirements will be fulfilled within the study works and the environmental impact assessment we are doing now and will submitted later this year,” she said, adding that the EU has recognised Nord Stream as a priority energy project, with the status of a “Trans-European Network (TEN), which means it is in the interest of Europe and therefore it is not in the interest of any member state to block it as you are suggesting.” Go tell the Estonians! A week earlier, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told New Europe in Astana that his country would like “to see that also the alternative on mainland will be researched.” This is a last ditch attempt by the Baltic States, which have being objecting to the pipeline from day one, to get some kind of influence. “The Russians will not go for it. (Russia said from the get-go) the very purpose of running it under the Baltic Sea is to bypass countries so that they don’t have to depend on intermediaries who are sitting across the pipeline so I think it’s a no-go,” Ron Smith, chief strategist at Moscow’s Alfa Bank, told New Europe. Paet claimed that Nord Stream AG, owned by Russian energy monopoly Gazprom, the German Wintershall and E.ON and the Dutch Nederlandse Gasunie, did not want to investigate a real alternative overland and the Baltic pipeline could affect the fragile sea in a devastating manner. “For us with Nord Stream there is one big problem or question mark and it is environmental one. Because actually we don’t understand why the Nord Stream company never didn’t analyse or research a real alternative and a real alternative should be on the mainland because the Baltic Sea is a very fragile sea environment,” Paet said. Vasilyeva reminded that there was a feasibility study carried out from 1997 to 1999 by Gazprom and Finland’s Neste (later known as Fortum) which identified that the best and most feasible route “from a technical, economic and environmental point of view” to transport additional amounts of gas from Russia to Europe was across the Baltic Sea. There are also no compressor stations needed along the sea route. She said Nord Stream, which was set up to cover the additional demand in Germany, France and the UK, is neither a substitute nor an alternative to any onland lines, like Yamal II. Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow’s UralSib Bank said Germany, which is keen to have the pipeline built and needs the gas, has managed to deflect the political objections while Russia has simply ignored them. Now the Baltic States and Poland have shifted away from the political angle — i.e. this is Russia looking to bypass us and reducing our energy security — and are now focusing on the environmental concerns and high cost in their efforts to get the original decision reversed. However, neither the Baltic States nor Poland are among the fivepermit issuing countries — Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany – whose territorial waters Nord Stream is going to cross. “This process is ongoing we are fulfilling all the necessary national requirements,” Vasilyeva said. A prominent Russian diplomat and associate of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told New Europe that Tallinn cannot do anything. “What does Estonia want? Nord Stream doesn’t go through its territory and for a good reason,” he quipped. A couple of weeks ago, when Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in St Petersburg, there was a very strong and clear reconfirmation of commitment to the Russian- German project from both sides. The fact that there is a deal now done between Gazprom and Germany’s E.ON and BASF on the Yuzhno-Russkoye field, which will be the primary source of this gas, ties it all in and it doesn’t seem as if either side is in any mood to allow any small, annoying European countries to spoil that.