Vice-president of the "NewTech Services" group of companies, professor at the Russian State University of Oil and Gas named after Gubkin, Valery Bessel, said in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza correspondent that not only the Nord Stream-2 project, which has now stopped due to the US sanctions, will be implemented, the potential Nord Stream project 3 is also inevitable.
“As for Nord Stream-2, it will be completed without fail due to economic interests of the companies that are currently building and will operate the pipeline - leading European companies, including two German, Austrian, Dutch-British and French. Let me remind you that the average selling price of export gas in 2018 was $249 per thousand cubic meters, in other words, the sale of 55 billion cubic meters gives Gazprom $13.7 billion in revenue," he said.
Our Western partners, after buying this gas at $249 per thousand cubic meters, will sell it to consumers at 1000-1200 euros per thousand cubic meters - which gives about $ 10 billion pre-tax profit per year to each of the five companies. Nobody will give up such profit,” he noted.
"Our American colleagues, no matter how they threaten Europe, can't provide European companies with a business comparable to this. In addition, both Gazprom and Europeans bear the costs of already completed construction, and no one will abandon almost completed pipeline," he believes.
The topic of Nord Stream-3 will absolutely be discussed in the future, expert expects. “Although energy consumption of gas in the European Union has slightly reduced (by 10% over 10 years) due to the use of energy-saving technologies and the growing influence of renewable energy sources, it will only grow in the future. The European Union is the No. 2 economy in the world, according to the World Bank, and its growth will require more and more fuel, and gas is the most environmentally friendly fuel of all organic species," he conculded.
