MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/. Nord Stream 2 AG, the operator of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, does not expect that expansion of the European Union’s gas directive will affect implementation of the project, company’s representative Sebastian Sass told TASS on Wednesday.
"Indeed, the EU Council’s Energy Working Group discussed yesterday the EU Commission’s proposal about an expansion of the Gas Directive," Sass said. The company has no detailed information about the course of discussions, since only representatives of EU member states participate in such meetings, he said.
"However, we understand that a large number of [EU] member states have many questions about the potential impact of the proposed new rules on countries and energy projects across Europe," he noted.
The EU Commission has earlier "advanced several initiatives to extend EU energy laws to Nord Stream 2. Each time the initiatives were pushed back by the Commission’s own Legal Service, by national regulators or by the Legal Service of the Council," Sass said.
"From the viewpoint of Nord Stream 2 it is important to underline that the proposed new rules would not affect the construction of our project in any case. They deal with aspects of commercial operations of pipelines, not with the implementation of such projects," he added.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is expected to come into service at the end of 2019. The pipeline is set to run from the Russian coast along the Baltic Sea bed to the German shore. Each of the pipeline’s two lines will have a capacity of 27.5 bln cubic meters. The new pipeline that is expected to connect the Russian resource base with European customers, will double the capacity of the first line and will basically follow its route.