Senators to push sanctions bill on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is set to introduce legislation that would expand sanctions against Gazprom’s (OTCPK:OGZPY) Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany by targeting insurance companies that work with Russian vessels on completion of the project.

Senator Ted Cruz, one of the sponsors of the legislation, says the pipeline poses “a critical threat to America’s national security and must not be completed.”

The bill would expand sanctions to companies that provide “underwriting services or insurance or reinsurance” for vessels working on the pipeline as well as those that provide “services or facilities for technology upgrades or installation of welding equipment for, or retrofitting or tethering” of vessels. read more

The World’s Most Controversial Gas Pipeline Is Nearing Its Endgame

Bloomberg News: Jonathan Tirone: May 13, 2020: 5:29 AM EDT: Last Updated May 13, 2020

(Bloomberg) — Construction of the world’s most controversial natural gas pipeline is about to enter the endgame of an energy dispute that’s pitted the U.S. against Russia and some of its closest trans-Atlantic allies, satellite images show.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, built to increase the flow of Russian gas into Europe’s biggest economy, was thwarted five months ago after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sanctions that forced workers to retreat. Now, after a three-month voyage circumnavigating the globe, the Akademik Cherskiy, the Russian pipe-laying vessel that’s a prime candidate to finish the project, has anchored off the German port where the remaining pipeline sections are waiting to be installed. read more

Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump’s top energy official said he’s confident that Russia won’t be able to complete the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea — and signaled that the U.S. will press forward with its opposition to the project.

Asked about Russian efforts to circumvent U.S. sanctions on the pipeline by completing it on its own, U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said “they can’t” — and dismissed claims that project owner Gazprom PJSC will face only a short delay. read more

2 Jan 2020

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is a European affair, and the US must not intervene with this initiative, said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Last week, US President Donald Trump signed the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes penalties for Nord Stream 2. Allseas’s Swiss company stopped digging the pipes under the pressure of U.S. restrictions.

“If Nord Stream 2 had reached the territories of the U.S. somehow, I would have appreciated the debate of the possible involvement of Washington in these issues. No one has to deal with that, except the nations involved in the project because of geographical and financial aspects, “Zakharova told the Rossiya 24 channel. read more

English translation of an article published today by the Dutch FD

Russia has a ship to finish Nord Stream 2

From our editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia itself has a pipeline ship to complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. The newspaper Kommersant reported this on Thursday, based on anonymous sources.

Earlier this week, under pressure from US sanctions legislation, the Dutch-Swiss offshore group Allseas stopped the construction of Nord Stream 2. This pipeline runs from the Russian Oest-Luga through the Baltic Sea and the Baltic Sea to the German Greifswald. read more

English translation of two Nord Stream 2 articles published today by the Dutch FD.

Berlin convinced: sanctions cannot stop the construction of the last 160 km of Nord Stream 2

By Pieter Lalkens and Jeroen Groot: 24 Dec 2019

The Solitaire was one of the ships of the Dutch-Swiss offshore company Allseas who worked on the Nord Stream 2. Gas pipeline. Photo: Reuters

In brief

• Allseas has stopped the construction of Nord Stream 2 under pressure from the American sanctions.
• But the gas pipeline is simply being phased out, German politicians expect.
• The latter does entail delays and higher costs.

Although the Dutch-Swiss offshore group Allseas has stopped the construction of Nord Stream 2 under pressure from US sanctions legislation, the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany will be phased out in the view of German politics. The sanctions will only lead to a few months delay and higher costs.

“I assume that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will be delivered in the second half of 2020,” said Peter Beyer, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German parliament, in a conversation with radio station Deutschlandfunk on Monday. read more

Nord Stream 2 contractor, Swiss-Dutch company Allseas, announced on Friday it had suspended pipe-laying activities. Nord Stream 2, which aims to double the Nord Stream route’s existing capacity of 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year, is owned by Gazprom, which is financing half of the project worth about 9.5 billion euros ($10.5 billion). Other partners in Nord Stream 2 are Austria’s OMV, the German firms Uniper and Wintershall, Anglo-Dutch energy major Royal Dutch Shell…

By Reuters: Dec. 21, 2019

MOSCOW — The group behind Nord Stream 2 said on Saturday it aimed to complete a pipeline to boost Russian gas supplies to Europe as soon as possible, after U.S. sanctions prompted a major contractor to suspend pipe-laying activities.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill on Friday that included legislation imposing sanctions on firms laying pipe for Nord Stream 2, which seeks to double gas capacity along the northern Nord Stream pipeline route to Germany.

Washington, which has been seeking to sell more of its own liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European states, has said Nord Stream 2 will make Europe too reliant on Russian supplies. read more

French electricity and gas firm Engie SA and Royal Dutch Shell are among other major companies alongside Gazprom which are major players in the controversial project.

By Zerohedge.com

Included in Wednesday’s just passed mammoth 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — which increases the Pentagon budget by $22 billion (to a whopping $738 billion) — were long-threatened sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 underwater natural gas pipeline.

In the House bill, expected to be approved by the Senate sometime next week before Trump signs it into law, are measures which specifically target companies assembling the pipeline, a last ditch US effort to block the controversial 760-mile project that would allow Russia to export natural gas directly to Germany, depriving Ukraine of badly needed gas transit fees along the current route for Russian supplies. read more

Russia’s Gazprom PJSC owns the project, with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and four other investors…

A new natural gas pipeline into Europe from Russia is shaking up geopolitics. Nord Stream 2, as it’s called, worries leaders in Eastern Europe, has put German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the hot seat and has prompted calls for sanctions from U.S. senators. Denmark gave approval on Oct. 30 for the pipeline to traverse its sub-sea territory, removing the final hurdle to its completion. Russian gas could be flowing through the conduit as soon as early next year.

1. What is Nord Stream 2?

It’s a planned 1,230-kilometer (764-mile) undersea pipeline that will carry natural gas from Russian fields to the European network at Germany’s Baltic coast. It will double the capacity of an existing undersea route — the original Nord Stream — that opened in 2011. Russia’s Gazprom PJSC owns the project, with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and four other investors including Germany’s Uniper SE and Wintershall AG providing half of the 9.5 billion-euro ($10.7 billion) in cost. As of the end of October, the link was 87% complete, according to Nord Stream. read more

 by Mark Lammey: 31/10/2019, 11:11 am

A boss at Shell insisted today that leaving the huge concrete legs of the Brent platforms at sea was the “right thing to do”.

Chief financial officer Jessica Uhl said she “appreciated the sensitivities” around the issue, but hoped the “strong fundamentals” of Shell’s plans would “come through”.

Earlier this month, Greenpeace activists protested against Shell’s intention not to remove the legs of three of the platforms from the North Sea.

The Anglo-Dutch company submitted its decommissioning programme in 2017, but has yet to receive formal approval from the UK Government, which has the final say on whether to grant a permit for “derogation”. read more

by Tom Baxter: 21 Oct 2019

As someone with a keen interest in decommissioning decision making, I have followed the Brent decommissioning saga with that same keen interest.

A question that keeps coming up for me is why did Shell present such an open goal to Greenpeace, the press and others?

Bearing in mind Shell’s previous experience and reputation hit with Brent Spar, the decision to recommend leaving the concrete cells and their contents is, on the face of it, very perplexing.

Greenpeace’s actions and ensuing headlines were completely predictable.

Shell leave ticking time bomb

Shell ignore international regulations

Shell should clean up its mess

Come on Shell what were you thinking about, why did you make that decision? read more

THEY are the giants of the deep which spent more than four decades pumping billions of pounds worth of oil from the seabed.

But now decommissioned rigs in the North Sea are at the centre of an environmental storm with an oil giant under intense pressure to rethink plans to leave some of the platforms in the sea.

Several hundred oil drilling platforms in the waters o

ff Scotland are due to be decommissioned over the next three decades as they approach the end of their operational lifetime. read more

Germany’s environment ministry has said a “compromise” on Shell’s Brent decommissioning plans may be possible but leaving any oil remains is “not acceptable”.

by Allister Thomas: 18/10/2019, 7:00 pm

A special meeting of Ospar took place in London today to discuss what it said was the UK’s intention to approve Shell’s proposals to leave the legs of the Brent Bravo, Charlie and Delta platforms in the field 115miles off Shetland.

The UK is part of the convention to protect Europe’s marine environment whose rules state oil platforms must be fully removed at the end of their production lives.

Shell wants an exception to the Ospar regulations due to the technical, safety and cost challenges related to removing the giant structures, which they were not originally designed for back in the 1970s. read more

by Allister Thomas: 18/10/2019, 7:48 am

Germany has said a special meeting on Shell’s Brent decommissioning plans will be the “litmus test” for a convention to protect Europe’s marine environment.

Ospar, an agreement of 15 European countries, made a ruling following Shell’s Brent Spar episode nearly 25 years ago requiring complete removal of oil and gas installations at the end of their production lives.

Shell was forced to abandon plans to sink the Brent Spar, an oil storage buoy, in the North Atlantic following sustained protests from Greenpeace in the 1990s.

Ospar meets in London later to discuss Shell’s plans to leave the concrete legs of the Brent Bravo, Charlie and Delta platforms in the North Sea, which contradicts Ospar rules. read more

Shell’s refusal to fully remove four old oil platforms has prompted a special North Sea treaty meeting called by Germany. Environmentalists suspect oil firms also intend to leave hundreds more behind.

Germany’s Environment Ministry said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that Shell intended to leave the “legs” of its platforms — after partial dismantlement — to decay at sea, still containing 12,125 tons (11,000 metric tons) of crude oil residues.

Ministry spokesman Stephan Gabriel Haufe told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that Germany wanted to avert a repeat of the “Brent Spar” drama of 1995 that saw Shell do a U-turn on disposal at sea — but only after a public outcry. read more

BERLIN — The German government said Wednesday it has called an international meeting over Shell’s refusal to dismantle old oil rigs containing thousands of tons of crude in the Northeast Atlantic.

A spokesman for Germany’s environment ministry told reporters in Berlin that the OSPAR Commission, which oversees a treaty on protecting the Northeast Atlantic, will hold an unprecedented special session in London to discuss the issue Friday.

Stephan Gabriel Haufe said the four Shell platforms in question — known as Brent Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta — contain about 11,000 metric tons (12,125 tons) of crude oil residue. read more