Warnings from Warsaw

Earlier this year Radek Sikorski, the Polish defence minister, raised a few eyebrows when he compared the current Russo-German project to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to the “Molotov-Ribbentrop pact” – the Nazi-Soviet agreement, which laid the groundwork for the invasion of Poland. The Poles are worried that the new pipeline might allow Russia to keep supplying German energy needs, while submitting the Poles to “energy blackmail” of the sort the Russians tried out on Ukraine, at the turn of the year. Once again, the Poles fear, their biggest neighbours are making an anti-Polish deal over their heads.

I am currently in Warsaw and I have to say that the mood among government officials here has not lightened up since Sikorski made his comments. On the contrary, the Poles feel that current events in Russia are vindicating the warnings they have been making for years.

The murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the brutal Russian pressure on Georgia – and even on individual Georgians living inside Russia – has the Poles saying “I told you so.” Or as one senior politician put it to me – “You should judge the Russians by the way they deal with Georgia, not by the way they deal with Germany or France.”

The sight of Russia bullying its near neighbours makes the Poles profoundly grateful that they are now inside the European Union and Nato – and so (one assumes) immune from such treatment. But they would like a few Nato facilities to be put on the ground in Poland, just to provide some sort of tripwire in case of invasion. It’s not that the Poles actually fear invasion in the foreseeable future. But they know their history (and how) and so cannot dismiss the fear of Russian aggression in the long-term.

In the short term, however, the Poles are still anxiously watching the evolution of the German-Russian relationship. The Merkel-Putin summit earlier this week was a bit too friendly for their liking. Indeed Angela Merkel, the new German chancellor, has been a bit of a disappointment for the Poles. They had hoped that as a former east German she would take a more “realistic” line towards Russia. Instead she seems almost as intent on a special energy relationship with Russia as Gerhard Schroder, her predecessor.

Policy towards Russia is meant to be one of the themes of the German presidency of the European Union next year. To judge by the mood in Warsaw, it will not be easy to agree a common European line.

Don't want Russian oil & gas through your backyard? No problem. Tell them to use the shipping lanes.

Solution: Submarine Pipeline

http://www.skk.mek.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/mek/skk/pdf/eksamensprojektforslag/laying%20of%20submarine%20pipelines.pdf

http://www.dnv.com/publications/oilgas_news/articles/Theworldslongestsubmarinepipeline.asp

The longest 42 inch offshore pipeline ever planned is to deliver Russian gas to Continental Europe via Finland and the Baltic Sea. The project, North Transgas (NTG), is under way, jointly owned by the Finnish energy company Fortum and Russia’s gas giant OAO Gazprom. Recently Ruhrgas and Wintershall have indicated their interest to join the project.

On April 24 this year these four companies signed a Joint Declaration in Moscow to jointly develop the North Transgas project further. In December 2000 the project obtained EU TEN (Trans European Network) status. The size of the pipeline will be impressive, with a length of approximately 1400 km, 42 inches in diameter and with a wall thickness of 2530 mm.

The base code in the feasibility design was DNVs pipeline standard DNV-OS-F101 Submarine Pipeline Systems, 2000. The cost-saving potential by using this code is significant because of the reduced wall thickness. In spite of the thinner wall, safety will be maintained through meeting quality requirements in material, design, inspection and fabrication.

The DNV Code has often been preferred for larger pipeline projects recently, such as the planned pipeline from Denmark to Poland, the Baltic Pipe, which also is being built partly to ensure true gas-to-gas competition.

DNV has recently also been authorised by German authorities to carry out certification of pipelines in the state of Mecklenburg Vor Pommern.

DNV has also been engaged as senior consultant for the Danish oil and gas operator DONG, with respect to the Baltic Pipe from Denmark to Poland via Germany.

15 September 2001 Author: Leif Collberg

Yep, plenty of room.

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