Russia’s second natural gas pipeline across the Baltic seabed to Germany is just months away from completion.
Klaus Haussmann, engineer at Nord Stream 2’s future landfall site at Lubmin on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast told German public radio station Deutschlandfunk that the “raw” laying of the pipeline would be finished by the middle of 2019.
“Then comes the entire installation of the electrical equipment, security chains. And, then it’s planned on the large scale that we get the first conduit filled with gas in November, from Russia,” said Haussmann.
Just before Christmas, Nord Stream said 370 kilometers of pipeline had already been laid and special construction ships and their crews were “proceeding according to plan and on schedule” into Swedish waters.
The avoidance of land and thereby transit fees has long angered Ukraine and Poland as well as Lithuania, which in 2014 at its Baltic Port of Klaipeda opened a terminal suitable for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from the USA and Qatar.
In early January, US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell threatened sanctions against German firms involved, prompting Berlin to reply that “nothing had changed” and the project had its permits and proceeding.
“We’re not that easy to impress and intimidate,” said Economy Minister Peter Altmaier, adding he was open still to discussions with American LNG exporters.