Nord Stream 2 will cover decline of gas production in EU, help develop market - Wintershall
BRUSSELS. Nov 29 (Interfax) - The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will help offset the decline of gas production in Europe, the CEO of Germany's Wintershall Holding, Mario Mehren told Interfax after the 49+2 Energy Symposium in Brussels.
The symposium was attended by high-ranking members of the European Commission, including Commissioner for Climate and Energy Arias Canete, and representatives of the energy sector.
"We Europeans are in an advantageous geographical location and we should see a chance in this. We have a powerful internal market that is tightly connected to major suppliers of natural gas, namely Norway and Russia. With this in mind we gave a positive assessment to the Nord Stream 2 project. The expansion of the capacity of the trans-Baltic gas pipeline can help compensate for the decline in production within the European Union and promote the further development of the EU common market," Mehren said.
Speaking about the choice between pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG), he said: "The EU needs gas. Russia has gas. Pipeline gas from Russia is a reliable source of supply of natural gas. LNG further increases energy security and is an important addition. It supplements, but it doesn't replace. For Russian natural gas will continue to have an advantage over LNG both in economic and environmental terms in the long term."
In environmental policy, Mehren called for finding an approach that would make it possible to reasonably bring together all important aspects, such as protecting the climate, increasing energy efficiency and developing renewable energy.
"We in Europe must stop trying to regulate everything to the last detail. Why don't we set one main goal for ourselves? Namely, reducing CO2 emissions. Then we will no longer face the choice of or-or, in other words the choice between protecting the climate at the expense of using renewable sources and energy security at the expense of using fossil fuels, such as natural gas. Instead of this we will have to answer the strategic question of how can we use renewable energy sources and natural gas in such a way as to most efficiently achieve the goal of reducing CO2 emissions at a reasonable cost," Mehren said.
Wintershall is a partner in the Nord Stream 2 project along with Russian gas giant Gazprom , Shell, OMV, E.ON and Engie.