Nord Stream: Not Just a Pipeline

2 What is Nord Stream?
Nord Stream, formerly known as the North European Gas Pipeline
(NEGP), is a planned 1200 km long dual pipeline for natural gas from
Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald in Germany through the Baltic Sea. If
constructed, Nord Stream will be among the longest offshore pipelines of
the world, and will have the capacity to supply 55 billion cubic metres
(bcm) of natural gas each year. The gas will originate in the already
developed Yuzhno-Russkoye field, and, later on, in the Yamal Peninsula,
Ob-Taz Bay and the Shtokmanovskoye (Shtokman) fields (Nord Stream
2008b).
Figure 1: Nord Stream Pipeline Route (incl. Service Platform
Location)
Source: Nord Stream 2008j
2.1 Companies Involved
In 1997 Russia’s Gazprom and the Finnish company Neste (later known
as Fortum) established a shared company, North Transgas Oy, to examine
alternative gas pipeline routes from Russia to Germany through the Baltic
Sea. Their 1998 feasibility study, which also included partly land-based
routes through Finland and Sweden, concluded that an offshore project
would have the best chance of implementation. German companies E.ON
Ruhrgas and BASF/Wintershall became associated with the project
through agreements of 2001 and 2004 respectively. In May 2005 Fortum
withdrew from the project, presumably due to Gazprom’s 2004
announcement that the offshore Shtokman gas field would be used for
LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports, which would make the Finnish part
of the pipeline unnecessary (Riley 2008: 3). Nonetheless, in September
2005 Gazprom, E.ON Ruhrgas and BASF/Wintershall agreed to construct
the North European Gas Pipeline. Present at the signing of the agreement
were the then Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder, both of whom had been proponents of the project
(Tarnogórski 2006: 104). The North European Gas Pipeline Company,
which is today known as Nord Stream AG, was incorporated in Zug,
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