The Nord Stream 2 pipeline project has received a permit for construction and operation in German territorial waters and the landfall area around eastern Germany’s Lubmin, the project’s operator said.
"The Stralsund Mining Authority issued the approval for this 55-kilometer-long section of the pipeline in accordance with the Energy Industry Act," Nord Stream 2 AG said in a statement.
Sberbank CIB analyst Valery Nesterov, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, compared this permission to lay a pipeline in German territorial waters with one of the bricks needed to implement the Nord Stream-2 project. "Only the Danish section is questionable: if Nord Stream is refused to pass the route through the Danish waters, then the pipe will bypass Denmark, which will cause a small rise in price of the project and a slight delay," he said.
Meanwhile, the main obstacles to the Nord Stream-2 have not yet been eliminated. "There are ongoing EU's efforts under the pressure of a number of Eastern European countries, primarily the Baltic and Poland, to change their 2009 energy legislation urgently, to bring the gas pipelines outside the territorial waters of the countries of the European community under EU jurisdiction. The US directly interferes in the business-process, supporting Poland," Valery Nesterov noted.
Russia should count on Germany's support. "Somehow, some of their leadership has been involved in the work to maintain this project, starting with Berlin's official position. Germany regards Nord Stream 2 as a commercial project, and it has the support of a number of states, in particular France and Austria. But there is a complex political struggle , the project has many supporters and many opponents, and the outcome of this struggle is not yet fully known," the analyst of Sberbank CIB concluded.
A senior analyst of 'Uralsib Capital', Alexei Kokin, characterized the permit as a minimum necessary condition for the implementation of the project. "This is quite significant, because it will allow us to start construction of the second thread," he explained.
The main obstacle to the Nord Stream-2 project, according to the expert, is Poland's desire to participate in the management of the pipeline. Kokin said that, on the other hand, German participants and gas companies, gas importing companies, energy companies, will take an active part in lobbying this project.
