Three prominent US Republican senators, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Ron Jonson, have promised Sassnitz will face “crushing sanctions” for its role in victualling and loading two Russian pipe-laying vessels and storing and handling the concrete-coated steel subsea pipes that they lay.

An accommodation vessel for 140 Russian workers is also moored in the port of Sassnitz. Also in the firing line is Mukran Port Terminals Gesellschaft, the port’s appointed storage and stevedoring contractor for the project, in which the Buss Group has a 39% stake.

Other ports involved in logistics and handling the cargo have been Karlshamn in Sweden and Kotka and Koverhar in Finland, but their roles have been completed as the pipeline has pushed past Finland and Sweden into Danish waters, so Sassnitz is the only port left to target.

In total, the twin-pipe project involves 100,000 x 12m subsea pipe sections, with each concrete-coated pipe weighing around 24t.

The Trump administration is strongly opposed to the project,which it considers will compromise Germany and NATO generally fearing that Russia would leverage its influence as the key energy provider for malign purposes.

The counterview from Europe is that the US wants to export more LNG, obtained by fracking, to Europe and regards Russian natural gas as a commercial rival that needs to be moved out of the way.

Nord Stream 2 runs parallel to the existing Nord Stream pipeline, which came into operation in 2011 with a capacity of 55B m3  a year, which would be matched by Nord Stream 2. Both pipe systems make landfall near Greifswald on the mainland, close to Rügen, although the seafall side is Ust-Luga rather than Vyborg. Most of the 1,240 km subsea pipeline has been completed, but Allseas, the main pipe-laying contractor, suspended activity last November due to US sanctions.

The uncompleted part of the pipeline is around 160 km long and would be in Danish and German waters. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently visited Copenhagen to lobby against the project. The Danish position is that it has to abide by the UN Law of the Sea and not stand in the way of transit infrastructure.

While German federal Chancellor Angela Merkel has been guarded in her comments, the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Manuela Schwesig, was more forthright. “The threats coming from Washington are absolutely unacceptable. Germany is free to decide for itself where and how it sources its energy,” she said. If anything, the US’s heavy-handed approach has served to unite most political parties and German business interests behind Nord Stream 2. Thereis wider EU concern that the five European energy companies providing 50% of the finance for the project will also be targeted. 

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This complete item is approximately 500 words in length, and appeared in the August 2020 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 20. To access this issue download the PDF here