MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti) – The lack of progress in continuing the Nord Stream gas pipeline to the United Kingdom is not because of worsening relations between Russia and the West, the gas consortium’s press service told RIA Novosti on Monday.
“The basis of the project remains and the technical and economic review that Nord Stream completed has given a strong base for the development of the project in the future whenever the decision is made. The Times’ intent to tie the lack of progress [of the project] of expanding the pipeline with the events in Ukraine and existing sanctions have nothing to do with it in regard to terms, reasons, and consequences,” the consortium said.
Earlier in the day, The Times reported that because of worsening relations between London and Moscow, Nord Stream’s plans to extend its pipelines to the UK were scrapped. In February, the Russian energy giant Gazprom and its consortium partners ran a feasibility study on the project, but EU nations shot it down saying the project would increase Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.
Gazprom has been unable to run Nord Stream at full capacity of some 55 billion cubic meters due to European restrictions. Under the terms of the EU’s Third Energy Package, the energy company can only use 50 percent of the pipeline, and reserve the other half for transportation by independent gas suppliers.
The Nord Stream is a 1,220 kilometers (760 miles) long offshore pipeline that pumps Russian natural gas from Siberia to Europe under the Baltic Sea, bypassing East European transit countries. It includes two parallel lines, each with a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters a year, stretching across the Baltic Sea floor from Russia’s Vyborg near the Finnish border to Greifswald on Germany’s coast.
In 2013, Russia delivered a total of 161.1 billion cubic meters to European countries, or almost 30 percent of Europe’s gas supply. Fifteen percent was transported via Ukraine and the rest through the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea (23.57 billion), as well as the Yamal pipeline through the territories of Belarus and Poland. Thirty-five percent of the European Union’s oil supplies were also of Russian origin.
