Along Europe’s southeastern flank, Gazprom has also completed the first segment of the Turk Stream pipeline, which will send Russian gas under the Black Sea to Turkey and on to southern Europe (Rian.com.ua, April 30). It completed the 900-kilometer segment in less than a year—a record pace for laying complicated deep-water pipeline infrastructure (Gazprom Official Website, Gazprom.com, April 30).
In contrast, it took almost three years to build the 1,345-kilometer Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), which will deliver gas overland from Azerbaijan through Georgia (via the South Caucasus Pipeline) to Turkey and beyond to Europe (Natural Gas World, May 2). Work is set to begin June 19 on a pipeline connecting TANAP from the Turkish border to Southeastern Europe.
Germany’s continued support for Nord Stream Two and Washington’s failure to make good on its threats to sanction major Russian gas projects are key reasons why Gazprom continues to build pipelines to Europe. EU member states are not only divided on Nord Stream Two, but also on policies to decrease the continent’s dependence on Russian gas.
Germany wants to import more Russian gas as it phases out coal and nuclear power. And a combination of Russian gas and planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities will make Germany an important European gas hub (Oil Price, March 20). Germany’s support for Nord Stream Two is a double-edged sword for the rest of Europe, however. On the one hand, its plans to become a natural gas hub would boost the EU’s largest economy; and both Berlin and Moscow claim the pipeline will make Europe as a whole more energy-secure. On the other hand, these plans will clearly undermine the EU’s energy-supply diversification efforts by flooding European gas markets with Russian supplies.
The completion of Nord Stream Two, expected for 2019, would increase Moscow’s stranglehold on the continent’s energy supplies. It would also provide Russia with a useful tool to put greater pressure on Ukraine. Given the long-term threat that a number of European leaders say Nord Stream Two poses to the continent, Germany may someday have to choose between its own Russia-related economic and political ambitions and the continued viability of Europe’s political and energy unions.
Fascinating. Russia and Germany had been allies at several points in their history they are not natural enemies.
Can you imagine the S.S. that could have resulted from an alliance between Germany and the USSR?