Europe must show support for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, since the United States would undermine Europe’s transition to greener energy if its sanctions delayed the project, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund Kirill Dmitriev said on Thursday, according to TASS.
“We are not very happy with sanctions on Nord Stream-2 because we believe those are sanctions on Europe’s transition to a more ecologically safe energy market,” the head of Russia’s RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev, told the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“We expect to grow gas exports by 34% in the next 20 years … We built a great infrastructure to supply gas to Asia which definitely needs it. And so we are helping the Asian transition to cleaner energy through gas and frankly through our pipelines to Europe including Nord Stream-2 we are helping Europe to also transition to cleaner energy,” he said.
Russia was forced to postpone completion of Nord Stream 2 until next year after the United States imposed sanctions on the project to supply gas to Germany.
Germany has criticized the move as meddling with its energy policies. Washington says it believes Europe should cut reliance on Russia gas and buy more gas from the United States instead.
The Nord Stream 2 project involves the construction of two lines with a total capacity of 55 bln cubic meters of gas per year from the coast of Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. Gazprom‘s European partners in the project are German Uniper and Wintershall, Austrian OMV, French Engie, and Anglo-Dutch Shell. The pipeline bypasses transit states – Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and other East European and Baltic countries – through the exclusive economic zones and territorial waters of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.
