Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Operator Expects Project to Be Completed by End of August, CEO Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Nord Stream 2 pipeline operator expects to complete the project by the end of August, the company's CEO, Matthias Warnig, told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

"At the moment, the work is 98% done. We expect the pipe-laying work to be done by the end of August," Warnig said.

Germany – the project’s main European economic benefactor and the continent’s main industrial power, has rejected US pressure, and stressed repeatedly that it sees Nord Stream 2 as strictly an economic venture unrelated to broader relations with either Washington and Moscow.

Nord Stream 2 is a joint venture of Russia’s Gazprom and five Western European energy concerns, and envisions the construction of a 1,230 km twin gas pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to complement the existing Nord Stream 1 network. Once completed later this year, the new network will be able to transport up to 1.9 trillion cubic feet (55 billion cubic metres) of gas per year from Russia to Europe, thus doubling Nord Stream’s capacity.