An additional environmental expert review was requested by the Danish Energy Agency for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline laying routes in Danish territorial waters, adding another hurdle for the controversial project, a spokesperson of the Nord Stream 2 AG, the gas pipeline project operator, told TASS news agency on Wednesday.
“The Danish Energy Agency has not rejected either the Southern Corridor or the so-called ‘Base Case’ in the territorial waters,” the spokesperson said. “They have asked us for an additional environmental assessment,” he noted.
The statement comes after officials in Ukraine, which opposes the construction of Nord Stream 2, said Danish authorities have banned the pipeline from passing in the country’s territorial waters.
“We have just received this request and will carefully evaluate this,” the spokesman said.
Denmark is the only country that has not yet issued a permit for pipeline construction in its territorial waters. The country’s laws make possible for the foreign ministry to decide whether the energy agency should consider such a project or not. The application is under consideration from January 2018. Nord Stream 2 made a decision earlier to study alternative routes outside territorial waters of Denmark.
The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is scheduled to be put into operation in late 2019. Each of the pipeline’s two stretches will have a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters. The pipeline, set to run from the Russian coast along the Baltic Sea bed to the German shore, is expected to connect the Russian resource base with European customers. The total project cost of the Nord Stream 2 is estimated at around $11 billion.
