Nord Stream 2 scheduled for 2018 completion

Nord Stream 2 AG, the consortium behind plans to build a second  gas pipeline along the bed of the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany, is on the verge of commissioning one German and two Russian companies to supply it with the 2,500km of pipes needed for the project and expects to start using it  to transport gas by 2018, it announced after a meeting in Zurich this week. The contract for the supply of 2.2m tons of large diameter steel pipes is expected to be split between  Germany’s Europipe GmbH (40%) and two Russian companies –  the United Metallurgical Company (33%,) and the Chelyabinsk Tube plant (27%).
The Nord Stream 2 consortium consists of Gazprom, Uniper, BASF, OMV, Engie and Shell, who last year signed a shareholder agreement for the construction of a second underwater pipeline with  an annual natural gas capacity of  55bcm to run from Russia to Germany bypassing Ukraine. The project may yet face a legal challenge from the EU on the grounds that the onshore section in Germany may  contravene a stipulation in the EU’s third energy package that prevents a gas provider from controlling the transmission business, a policy known as ownership unbundling.