The project to extend a major international gas pipeline through to The Netherlands and the UK has been scrapped.
Some suggest that the project has been shelved due to the downturn in relations between the EU and Russia over Ukraine.
The Nord Stream consortium insists that the lack of progress in continuing the Nord Stream gas pipeline to the United Kingdom is not because of worsening relations between Russia and the West. “The basis of the project remains and the technical and economic review that Nord Stream completed has given a strong base for the development of the project in the future whenever the decision is made” the consortium said.
In February, the Russian energy giant Gazprom and its consortium partners ran a feasibility study on the project, but EU nations were wary, saying the project would increase Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.
The Nord Stream is a 1220 km (760 miles) long offshore pipeline that pumps Russian natural gas from Siberia to Europe under the Baltic Sea, bypassing East European transit countries.
It includes two parallel lines, each with a capacity of 27.5 billion m3/yr, stretching across the Baltic Sea floor from Russia’s Vyborg near the Finnish border to Greifswald on Germany’s coast.
Edited from various sources by Elizabeth Corner
Sources: Ria Novosti, Voice of Russia