Nord Stream 2 AG: Denmark has not refused to authorize pipeline route
Nord Stream 2 AG, the company operating the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, has refuted Naftogaz’s claims that Denmark has issued a negative decision on the pipeline route, RIA Novosti reports, citing a company spokesperson.
“The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) has not declined even one of Nord Stream 2’s two applications to receive authorization [for the construction project]. Both of them are still valid,” the Nord Stream representative stated.
According to the spokesperson, the DEA has asked the company to include in the project’s environmental impact assessment an optional route for the pipeline in the Danish exclusive economic zone to the south of Bornholm island.
Andriy Kobolyev, CEO of the Ukrainian company Naftogaz, previously said that Nord Stream 2 had received “yet another refusal from Denmark”. He wrote on Facebook: “They will once again need to look for a new route. And the Baltic Sea is not that big. There are enough people who want to lay or bury something”.
The Nord Stream 2 project will be the second gas pipeline spanning from the Russian coast to Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea after the already operational Nord Stream. The pipeline’s length will exceed 1,200 km and it will cost an estimated € 9.5 billion.
Denmark is the only country from which Nord Stream 2 still requires authorization. The Danish government has been considering the application since April last year, and has proposed to escalate the discussion to the level of all Europe. To date, Nord Stream 2 AG has received national authorization from all the other jurisdictions that the future gas pipeline will pass through: Russia, Germany, Finland, Sweden.