Germany’s Energy Regulator Bundesnetzagentur thinks that top Brussels officials are scrambling to find ways to challenge Gazprom’s $11bn Nord Stream 2 pipeline after EU lawyers and a German regulator rejected claims that the bloc’s energy laws applied to the project as reported by Nord Stream 2 AG press service on March 31, 2017.
Brussels wrote to the Bundesnetzagentur in late February to seek its opinion. In his response, Mr Homann said that such offshore pipeline connections were “not subject” to the bloc’s energy laws and noted his interpretation was consistent with the European Commission’s own in-house legal assessment.
Meanwhile, early this week EC has informed that the Third Energy Package, which regulates the internal market, is not applicable to the pipeline that will connect Russia with Germany.
It was a tough decision and EC applied to EU member-states to submit their vision of the gas pipeline future.
Nord Stream 2 will have a capacity of 55 bcm, consisting of two lines with a 27.5-bcm capacity each. The process has started; the permit application in Sweden was already submitted in September last year and the other four country application processes will begin in the next weeks. The construction is planned to start in April 2018. Both lines will be laid in parallel and both lines will be completed by the end of 2019.