Pipeline project progresses

TALLINN - Gas is expected to start flowing through the Nord Stream pipeline in the fall of 2011, traveling from Russia’s interior to Western European customers, despite Estonia’s earlier denial of permission for the pipeline to pass through its territorial waters, reports Estonian Free Press. The work is proceeding apace on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, as part of the pipeline has already reached the coast of Germany.

The pipeline is the result of the cooperation of Gazprom, E.ON Ruhrgas, BASF-Wintershall and Gasunie.
A press release on the Nord Stream Web site says that “From fall 2011, natural gas from the Nord Stream pipeline will flow into the transfer station which is currently being built. There, it will first be purified and preheated to the right temperature. The quality, quantity and pressure of the natural gas will then be measured.”

The first pipe section of the Nord Stream Pipeline was pulled ashore on July 3 in Germany. “This construction phase was important and exciting for us, not just from a technological point of view. It also has a symbolic significance, as the Nord Stream pipeline has now reached the European mainland for the first time and, moreover here in Lubmin, the point where WINGAS is planning and already building the natural gas transfer station and the OPAL and NEL onshore pipelines,” says Dr. Georg Nowack, Nord Stream project manager for Germany.

Since June 28, on the pipe-laying vessel ‘Castoro Dieci,’ anchored around one kilometer from the landing point, work has been underway to weld together the approximately twelve-meter-long pipes to form the first pipeline string. The pipeline, which is thus growing at up to 24 meters per hour, is pulled ashore with the aid of a heavy-duty draw winch mounted on land.

The ground-section pipeline in Germany is 470-kilometers long (OPAL) and will transport the gas via Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Saxony to the Czech border near Olbernhau in the Erzgebirge mountains. Of the 470-kilometer pipeline, 260 kilometers have already been welded. By summer, over half of the line will already have been laid in the ground. Already now, 160 kilometers have been laid.

Construction work on OPAL has been underway since September 2009: between Lubmin and the Erzgebirge mountains, all construction sections are being worked on at top speed, says the press release. Construction is currently proceeding at around 2,500 meters per day. “We are very satisfied with this and we are well on schedule,” says Hans-Georg Egelkamp, OPAL project manager at WINGAS. With a diameter of 1.40 meters, OPAL is the largest natural gas pipeline to be laid in Europe.

In addition to OPAL, construction of the North European Gas Pipeline is also planned. This is to run from the Nord Stream pipeline landing point, past Schwerin and Hamburg, to the Rehden gas storage facility in Lower Saxony, connecting Nord Stream to the European pipeline network, similarly to OPAL.
Nord Stream creates an alternative route that avoids the national territories of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, countries that have had gas problems and cuts from Russia in the past.

As expected, this information has raised concerns in Estonia. Because the question if the decision taken by the Estonian parliament was right or wrong as to whether Nord Stream was a chance to take or refuse is again under debate.
Last October, Nord Stream was considered a threat to the environment by the Riigikogu. When the company submitted a request “to carry out geophysical and geotechnical research on the seabed off Estonia, including visual observations, drilling, and taking samples from the seabed and below it,” the answer they got was a categorical ‘no.’

In fact, the national parliament made its position clear in a public statement: “Because the results of drilling work on the continental shelf will give information about Estonia’s natural resources and their possible use, the Estonian government has the right to reject the research application.” The Estonian parliament and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supported instead the ‘Amber Project,’ that considered building a gas land pipeline to Europe via Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

The environmental reasons were and are also supported by the Estonian fund for Nature board member Juri-Ott Salm.
He referred to a complaint sent to the European Commission in which it could be read that “the Finnish Food Safety Authority EVIRA warned about the impact of the pipeline on human health. The impact of the pipeline on human health and well-being are not assessed adequately. Sediments containing very toxic chemicals are remobilized during construction.”
In his opinion, “the environmental impact assessments of the Nord Stream gas pipeline have not been properly estimated and relevant scientific data have not been taken into account, therefore not following the precautionary principle.”

Salm also has doubts about the security measures adopted: “Regarding toxins, there should have been proper impact assessments in order to estimate the risks from toxins and change the plan if needed. At the moment it is important to carry out proper monitoring in order to alert if toxin levels change.”
The Estonian Fund for Nature is also cooperating with the Estonian Green Movement and other associations in order to alert citizens about the possible impact in the environment that the pipeline could have.