Determined to stop the completion of the controversial Russian-German gas interconnector, the U.S. Congress already threatened to levy sanctions against construction and pipe-laying companies involved in the project. Allseas, a Swiss pipelay firm, consequently suspended works.
Just 160 km of the 2,460 km long pipeline is left to be laid. AllSeas' deep sea pipe laying ship Solitaire has been laying most of Nord Stream-2 but the Swiss company had suspended works due to the U.S. sanctions.
The Nord Stream consortium, a purely commercial entity, stressed it remains focused on bringing the $11 billion pipeline project to a “successful end. “The twin pipeline -- designed to carry up to 55 Bcm of gas per year from Vyborg, Russia, along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to the city of Greifswald in eastern Germany -- was scheduled to start up in the first half of 2020, but will now be delayed.
Russia determined to go it alone
Russia vowed to complete construction works anyway and is now trying to mobilize its own capacities to do so. A pipe-laying vessel named Akademik Cherskiy, currently moored in the port of Nakhodka, is widely expected to carry out the work.
However, the Russian President Vlamimir Putin cautioned recently that the pipeline may not start flowing gas until the first quarter of 2021.
The Russian gas giant Gazprom is financing half of the project worth about 9.5 billion Euros ($10.5 billion). Other partners in the project are Austria’s OMV, the German firms Uniper and Wintershall, Royal Dutch Shell and France’s Engie. The European project partners have each invested between 950 million and 9.5 billion Euros into the project, adding up to 50 percent of total cost.
ROI likely to come “later” but at “higher level”
Austria’s OMV, one of the investors in Nord Stream 2, has already financed around Eur700 million of its share in the project. Chief executive Rainer Seele remains calm, saying “we are not expecting high cash calls from the Nord Stream 2 company in 2020.”
The delay, in his view, means that the Return on Investment (ROI) would come "a bit later" but at a higher level.
Nord Stream is a highly political project; so much of the goodwill – both from EU-member states and the United States – will depend on whether Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukrainy will reach a permanent gas transit agreement for the time after Nord Stream-2 will come onstream. Initially, Gazprom had threatened to halt all deliveries and transit through Ukraine after the second Baltic Sea interconnector will be fully operational.