Nord Stream 2
Nord Stream 2 is a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany running through the Baltic Sea, financed by Gazprom and several European energy companies. Feasibility studies began in 2011 to expand the Nord Stream 1 line and double annual capacity to, with construction beginning in 2015. It was completed in September 2021, but did not enter service. Planning and construction of the pipeline were mired in political controversy over fears that Russia would use it, one of 23 pipelines between Europe and Russia, for geopolitical advantage over Europe, and more specifically, Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspended its certification on 22 February 2022, following official recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic by the Russian State Duma and President Putin during the prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On 26 September 2022, Danish and Swedish authorities reported a number of explosions at pipes A and B of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and pipe A of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, with the resulting damage causing significant gas leaks. The European Union considers the incident to be sabotage of key European energy infrastructure. The Nord Stream explosions also resulted in the worst release of methane gas in human history, with estimates ranging from of methane released into the atmosphere. In October 2022, Russia confirmed that Pipe B of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline escaped destruction, and offered to resume gas supply to Europe.
Nord Stream 2 never delivered any gas, while Russia suspended gas deliveries through Nord Stream 1 from August 31, 2021, quoting "maintenance needs". This situation became permanent after the destruction of three of the pipelines in September 2022 and sanctions linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Out of the three separate investigations carried out by Germany, Sweden and Denmark, the latter two were closed without publicly assigned responsibility for the damage in February 2024. In June 2024 German authorities issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national suspected of the sabotage, who according to the Polish National Public Prosecutor's Office had since fled to Ukraine. In October 2025 the suspect was arrested in Poland, where a Polish court ruled that the European arrest warrant was without merit after which the suspect was released.
In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine the EU Commission adopted on 18 July 2025 a sanctions package against Russia that bans the direct and indirect use of the Nord Stream pipelines.
History
In 2011, Nord Stream AG started evaluation of an expansion project consisting of two additional lines to double the annual capacity up to. In August 2012, Nord Stream AG applied to the Finnish and Estonian governments for route studies in their underwater exclusive economic zones for the third and fourth lines. It was considered to route the additional pipelines to the United Kingdom but this plan was abandoned.In January 2015, Gazprom announced that the expansion project had been put on hold since the existing lines were running at only half capacity due to EU sanctions on Russia over the annexation of Crimea in 2014. In June 2015, an agreement to build Nord Stream 2 was signed between Gazprom, Royal Dutch Shell, E.ON, OMV, and Engie. As the creation of a joint venture was blocked by Poland, in April 2017, Uniper, Wintershall, Engie, OMV and Royal Dutch Shell signed a financing agreement with Nord Stream2 AG, a subsidiary of Gazprom responsible for the development of the Nord Stream2 project.
On 31 January 2018, Germany granted Nord Stream2 a permit for construction and operation in German waters and for landfall areas near Lubmin. In May 2018 construction started at the Greifswald end point. NS2 was expected to reduce gas price in Europe, as LNG has conversion costs.
In January 2019, the US ambassador in Germany, Richard Grenell, sent letters to companies involved in the construction of Nord Stream2 urging them to stop working on the project and threatening them with the possibility of sanctions. In December 2019, the Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson also urged Allseas owner Edward Heerema to suspend the works on the pipeline, warning him that the United States would otherwise impose sanctions. Cruz formally proposed such a bill to enable sanctions in November 2021.
In December 2019, Allseas announced that the company had suspended its Nord Stream2 pipelaying activities, anticipating enactment of the US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which contained sanctions. In May 2020, the German energy regulator refused an exception from competition rules that require Nord Stream2 to separate gas ownership from transmission. In August 2020, Poland fined Gazprom €50 million due to its lack of cooperation with an investigation launched by UOKiK, the Polish anti-monopoly watchdog. UOKiK cited competition rules against Gazprom and companies financing the project, suspecting that they had continued work on the pipeline without permission from the government of Poland.
In December 2020, the Russian pipelaying ship Akademik Cherskiy continued pipe-laying. In January, Fortuna, another pipe-layer, joined forces with the Akademik Cherskiy to complete the pipeline. On 4 June 2021, Vladimir Putin announced that the pipe-laying for first line of the Nord Stream 2 had been fully completed. On 10 June, the sections of the pipeline were connected. The laying of the second line was completed in September 2021.
In June 2021, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Nord Stream2 completion was inevitable. In July 2021, the US urged Ukraine not to criticise a forthcoming agreement with Germany over the pipeline. On 20 July, Joe Biden and Angela Merkel reached a conclusive deal that the US may trigger sanctions if Russia used Nord Stream as a "political weapon". The deal aims to prevent Poland and Ukraine from being cut off from Russian gas supplies. Ukraine will receive a $50 million loan for green technology until 2024 and Germany will set up a billion-dollar fund to promote Ukraine's transition to green energy to compensate for the loss of the gas transit fees. The contract for transiting Russian gas through Ukraine will be prolonged until 2034 if the Russian government agrees.
On 16 November 2021, European natural gas prices rose by 17% after Germany's energy regulator suspended approval of the Nord Stream 2.
On 9 December 2021, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called on Germany's newly appointed Chancellor Olaf Scholz to oppose the start-up of Nord Stream 2 and not to give in to pressure from Russia. On a visit to Rome, Morawiecki said: "I will call on Chancellor Scholz not to give in to pressure from Russia and not to allow Nord Stream 2 to be used as an instrument for blackmail against Ukraine, an instrument for blackmail against Poland, an instrument for blackmail against the European Union."
Scholz suspended certification of Nord Stream 2 on 22 February 2022 in consequence of Russia's recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics and the deployment of troops in territory held by the DPR and LPR.
Nord Stream 2 AG filed for bankruptcy on 1 March 2022 and laid off all 106 employees from its headquarters in Zug, Switzerland.
On 26 September 2022, a massive pressure loss and signs of large gas releases near the Danish island Bornholm were reported. Shortly after, gas leaks from the two pipelines were discovered within the Danish and Swedish economic zones. The day after the leaks occurred, Swedish police opened an investigation of the incident, calling it "major sabotage". The investigation is conducted in cooperation with other relevant authorities as well as the Swedish Security Service. A similar investigation was opened in Denmark. The two nations were in close contact, and had also been in contact with other countries in the Baltic region and NATO. These gas leaks were soon considered to be sabotage. On 29 September 2022, the Swedish Coast Guard confirmed a second leak from Nord Stream 2 very close to a larger leak found earlier on Nord Stream 1.
Development
Costs and financing
For Nord Stream 2, the loan from Uniper, Wintershall Dea, OMV, Engie, and Royal Dutch Shell covers 50 percent of the projected costs of €9.5 billion. The rest is being financed by Gazprom.Project companies
Nord Stream 2 was developed and is operated by Nord Stream 2 AG, a subsidiary of the Russian state energy company Gazprom headquartered in Zug, Switzerland.Contractors
Nord Stream 2 was laid by Allseas using pipe-laying vessels Pioneering Spirit and Solitaire, except the part of the German offshore section which was laid by Saipem's pipe-laying vessel C10. Pipes were manufactured by EUROPIPE, OMK and the Chelyabinsk Pipe-Rolling Plant, and were coated by Wasco Coatings Europe. Blue Water Shipping handled the transportation and storage of pipeline segments in Germany, Finland and Sweden for Wasco. A joint venture of Boskalis and Van Oord did rock placement at the preparatory stage of construction. Kvaerner did the civil and mechanical engineering of the onshore facilities in Russia.Technical features
Route
Except for the Russian and Danish section, the route of Nord Stream 2 follows mainly the route of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.Russian onshore-pipeline
To feed Nord Stream 2, of new pipeline and three compressor stations were built and five existing compressor stations were expanded. The feeding pipeline starts in Gryazovets and follows the existing route of the Northern Lights pipeline. In Volkhov, the pipeline turns south and continues to the Slavyanskaya compressor station near Ust-Luga.Baltic Sea offshore pipeline
Nord Stream 2 starts at the Slavyanskaya compressor station near Ust-Luga port, located south-east of the village of Bolshoye Kuzyomkino in the Kingiseppsky District of the Leningrad Oblast, in the historical Ingria close to the Estonian border. A onshore pipeline runs from the compressor station to the landfall at the Kurgalsky Peninsula on the shore of Narva Bay. The landfall point in Kolganpya at the Soikinsky Peninsula was considered as an alternative.Except for the Russian section, the route of Nord Stream 2 follows mainly the route of Nord Stream 1. From the Russian landfall, a section runs through Russian territorial waters to the Finnish exclusive economic zone. The Finnish section is and the following section in the Swedish exclusive economic zone is long.
The Danish sections runs on the Danish continental shelf southeast of Bornholm. The German part of the pipeline consists of of offshore pipeline and onshore pipeline connecting the landfall with the Nord Stream 2 receiving terminal. Nord Stream 2 has two parallel lines, each with a capacity of of natural gas per year.