Across Baltic Sea
24.04.2007 (15:44)
Construction of Nord Stream pipeline is going on successfully. Thousands kilometers of onland pipes are already constructed in Russia. The Baltic Sea is being researched in order to choose a place for deepwater pipeline. Technical difficulties of construction are not the only obstacle for the process. Political and economical obstacles have appeared recently. They appeared in the Baltic States mostly.
Igor Gryazin, Deputy of the Estonian Parliament, offered a bill “On Marine Border”. He proposed to broaden the contry’s marine border by three miles. The idea is to come back to the Estonian domestic territorial sea as it was till 1993. Estonia and Finland exchanged diplomatic notes and agreed to turn off borders of their territorial sea by three sea miles each from so-called “centre line”. Thus, there appeared a free economic zone, six miles wide. Since then there has been so-called nobody’s sea there. That is important when pipelines are laid, sea and air communication is organized. The agreement did not cause any problems for 12 years until an agreement of construction of Nord Stream pipeline was published in 2005. The bill, which was offered by Gryazin, will influence the pipeline. The latter will turn out to appear on territory of Estonian part of the sea.
Construction of the pipeline is criticized by Estonian officials. Estonian press negatively estimates construction of the pipeline, Greenpeace activists are worried. But the main reason is that Estonia will be cut off from transit of Russian gas. Estonia will loose $ 50-70 mln annually after that , Igor Gryazin and his associates are sure. Thus can be understood, what worries Estonians.
Estonian officials want Finland to vote for enlargement of its borders. In this case the territorial seas of both countries will merge and there will be no free economic zone. Thus Russia will have no opportunity to construct a pipeline in the neutral waters. An approval of the owner of territorial sea is required for construction of pipeline there.
There is an opinion that the Baltic States did not expect that the pipeline would bypass transit countries. They expected that the pipe would be constructed on shore. Meanwhile they have not manage to get profit from the project. At the same time the construction of Estonian – Finish pipeline is approved. More than that an electric line which joins two countries is laid at the bottom of Baltic Sea. The idea of construction of Nord Stream appeared in 1997. Research works started after that, they have been almost completed by now. The pipeline is to join Russian coast near Vyborg and German coast near Greifswald. The line will be 1200 kilometers long. Nowadays the onland part of the pipeline (917 kilometers) is being constructed in Russia. It will join Nord Stream and Russian gas extracting system. Gazprom owns 51% shareholding of Nord Stream. BASF and E. ON own 24.5% each.
The EU countries will suffer deficit of 100 bln cubic meters of natural gas by 2010. That will be caused by reduction of extraction at the North Sea. 25% of gas required by Europe will be supplied by Nord. Great Britain, Netherlands, Danmark, Sweden and Finland are expected to be linked to the pipeline network.
The pipeline will be put into operation in 2010 according to the plan. The capacity of the first line will have 27.5 bln cubiñ meters. The annual capacity will increase to 55 bln cubic meters after the second line is put into operation in 2013. Primal investments in the project made approximately € 5 bln.
Influence of construction on the condition of the sea is to be estimated according to the international standard. The project was estimated by EU committees. The pipeline got a status of Trans-European Energy Networks - TEN-Å in 2000.
Meanwhile representatives of Nord strean AG visited Vilnius and Riga last weak. That fact shows that Baltic countries are trying to get any profit from the project. A program of Baltic Shores and sea cleaning started. That program is somehow an attack for the project.
Last week Nil Strebek, representative of Nord Stream, proclaimed that the decision of construction of the pipeline has been made. Only the route of the pipeline can be changed. She also stressed that official permissions of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are not needed, as the pipeline will not cross the territorial seas of that states.
Latvia discusses the possibility of construction of underground gas storage and its connection with Nord Stream. Nord Stream expert said that the research of the economical justification of the project is needed. More that that, approval of shareholders of Nord Stream is needed before construction starts.
By Natalia Don
Print version
"If an event is held more than three times, it means, that it has found its niche," with these words Vice-President of the Eurasian Transport Union, Yuri Shcherbanin, characterized the 12th International Conference "TransBaltica2009: 5 years in EU", which took place recently in Riga.
Recently there was an opinion that competition in the wagon current uncoupling repair sector is not efficient and even harmful. Nowadays, almost all participants in the transport process, including Russian Railways JSC, believe that competition will make for a better quality of services.
The discussion of the consequences of Russian Transport Ministry’s order ¹ 258, which implemented additional rules of registering and adopting applications on empty mileage, on the entire network of Russian Railways became one of the most heated in the transport sector lately. Market players had radically different viewpoints – from a total collapse of railway transportation to solution of the most urgent problems of the railway sector. In practice, the consequences of the order are still vague, so law enforcement practice turns to be of crucial importance.
