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#gas kovoja prieš JAV, Rusiją ir Europą

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First, it was America against Russia, then Europe against Russia, then Europe against Europe. The saga around Gazprom’s 866 km, €9.5 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline running directly from Russia to Germany has become a geopolitical dance threatening a new cold war not only between the US and Putin but between members of the European Union, writes Fair Energy Director Peter Wilding.

The US Congress is now poised to pass a sanctions regime which will jeopardise investment in Nord Stream 2. The new broadside from Washington could renew worries among foreign investors in the project. Many companies, such as oil major ExxonMobil, suspended Russian investment projects while banks cut off financing to local businesses. The most prominent target is the contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which may start pumping gas from Russia to Europe in 2019, and is a flagship project for Kremlin-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom.

US opposition to the pipeline, which critics say is a geopolitical power play by Gazprom to increase its dominance of Europe’s energy supply, could become a big headache for the project’s European partners Shell, Engie, OMV, Wintershall and Uniper who have agreed to pay half of the €9.5bn cost.

The Kremlin thinks that U.S. sanctions which threaten Europe’s supply of Russian gas are a bluff. But, ultimately, the global natural gas markets have been transformed with much greater supply and liquidity from booming US natural gas production and rising US liquefied natural gas exports. This month US shipments of LNG arrived in Poland and Lithuania signed its first agreement to receive US LNG demonstrating that Gazprom is losing the power it once had over European export markets.

Gazprom has been desperate to hold on to the European gas market where it faces not only more competition but also a political backlash due to its previous heavy hand in energy trade exemplified by political gas pricing and threats of gas cuts. Eastern European, Nordic and Baltic states have denounced Nord Stream 2 as another monopoly effort by Russia in Europe and a security threat given Russia’s increased military presence in the region where the pipelines would be laid. Europe, however, is split between Germany (which champions the pipeline) and the eastern European states. Which is why the Commission has now sought a mandate from EU member states to negotiate a legal agreement on Nord Stream 2. This will force Berlin for the first time to take a political stance on a deal it claims is purely commercial. But Germany must also decide on the European Commission’s role in authorising the pipeline as well as the thorny issue of involving other member states in voting on it.

The Commission considers that the Nord Stream 2 project does not contribute to the Energy Union objectives of giving access to new supply sources, routes or suppliers and that it could allow a single supplier to further strengthen its position on the European Union gas market and lead to a further concentration of supply routes. Hence, Brussels is trying to cut through the legal confusion to take into account fundamental principles stemming from international and EU energy law which include transparency in pipeline operation, non-discriminatory tariff-setting, non-discriminatory third party access and separation between the activities of supply and transmission.

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Although the European Commission has reacted to the threat of direct US sanctions on Nord Stream 2 by warning of possible “wide and indiscriminate” “unintended consequences” on the EU’s efforts to diversify energy sources away from Russia, Moscow’s suggestions that Europe’s gas supplies from Russia are threatened may convince other EU countries of the need to secure alternatives for Russian gas imports and support the Commission mandate.

All in all, Russia is faced with a double-whammy of declining gas market share and now unwelcome political scrutiny from Washington and Brussels making Germany – and its host of quiet Nord Stream 2 supporters - looking increasingly lonely.

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