MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. The implementation of the Nord Stream-2 project proceeds as scheduled, with about 370 kilometers of the pipeline have already been laid, Nord Stream 2 AG, the pipeline construction’s operator, said on Sunday.
"By now, about 370 kilometers have already been laid," the company said in a press release.
The Pioneering Spirit pipe-lay vessel has joined the Nord Stream-2 flotilla in Finland’s exclusive economic zone. It will supersede the Solitaire vessel which has been working in Finland since September. Now, the Solitaire will head to the southern part if Sweden’s exclusive economic zone to lay a 510-kilometer section of the pipeline.
Both ships, the Pioneering Spirit, measuring 382 by 124 meters, with a multinational crew of 570, and the Solitaire, 300 by 41 meters, with a crew of 420, are operated by Allseas co.
According to earlier reports, Nord Stream-2 has obtained all the necessary permissions from four out of five countries. Works are conducted in Sweden, Finland, Germany and Russia. Construction proceeds in Russia’s and Germany’s coastal sections. The Audacia pipe lay vessels finished works in Germany’s waters yesterday.
Nord Stream-2 is an international project for the construction of a gas pipeline that will run across the bottom of the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast to Germany bypassing transit states, such as Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and other Eastern European and Baltic countries.
The new 1,200 kilometer pipeline, basically following the same route as Nord Stream, will traverse economic zones and territorial water of five countries, namely Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The pipeline’s capacity will be 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year and it is planned to be commissioned in late 2019.
By now, only Denmark has not yet issued a permit for the pipeline construction
Nord Stream 2 AG is the operator of the pipeline construction. Its sole stakeholder is Russia’s Gazprom. Gazprom’s European project partners are Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie, and Royal Dutch Shell (the UK and the Netherlands) that are to finance 50% of the project.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said earlier that the construction works proceed as scheduled and it gives grounds to say that gas supplies via Nord Stream-2 can be launched on January 1, 2020.