Nord Stream seeks to study Estonian economic zone in Baltic until 2015
TALLINN. Aug 27 (Interfax/BNS) - Nord Stream AG, the operating company for the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea floor from Russia to Germany, has requested of the Estonian Foreign Affairs Ministry permission to perform a corridor study in that country's Baltic Sea economic zone in the period until December 31, 2014.
The company wants permission to research a four-kilometer wide corridor, Nord Stream AG representative for the Baltic States Romans Baumanis told the Baltic News Service. The aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of building at third and, possibly a fourth line of the pipeline.
Nord Stream AG, considering the environmental and technical limitations, has discussed two possible corridors through which to lay pipeline in the Gulf of Finland.
These corridors run through Estonian and Finnish economic waters, so the company has applied to both governments for permission to do studies, Nord Stream said. The application to Estonia was submitted Wednesday through the legal firm Sorainen.
The studies would result in documentation that would be a basis on which the Nord Stream shareholders could decide on the continuation of the second stage of the pipeline's expansion.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said at the end of June that the decision on building a third and fourth line of Nord Stream would be made by the end of 2012. The first line was completed in November 2011, and the second is scheduled to launch in 2012.
The first two lines do not pass through Estonia's exclusive economic zone, but the country participated in consultations and approvals, since the gas pipeline could also have transborder impact on the country.
In 2007, Estonia refused a request to conduct studies in its economic zone. Last week Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja advised Estonia to approve the company's request this time. He said that for Finland new lines of the gas pipeline are an economic issue, not an issue of security.
However, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said the situation had not changed since the last time Nord Stream requested to conduct studies in the country's economic zone and he does not see any reason why the government's position in regard to such studies should have changed.
Ansip also said at a press conference last Thursday that the application that the Foreign Ministry received from Nord Stream on Wednesday evening for permission to conduct studies in Estonia's economic zone can be viewed only as a preliminary application.
Nord Stream can only submit an application when the company conducts the necessary studies and its shareholders make a decision on whether to build another pipeline, Ansip said.
He also said he had not yet seen the preliminary application received on Wednesday and cannot comment on more detail. "I don't want to get ahead of events and can't say right now what decision the government will make this time," Ansip said.
In May, Ansip said Estonia had no reason to join the Nord Stream project in order to receive gas, since this would not resolve the problem of having a monopoly gas supplier.
Estonia has never been invited to participate in the Nord Stream project and it is probably not possible to change positions in this regard, he said at a press conference.
Estonia also has no reason to join this project in order to run one of the lines to the country, as the capacity of the Estonia-Latvia pipeline is large enough to enable the country to increase gas consumption several-fold, Ansip said.
He said Estonia's problem is that it has a monopoly supplier. Estonia gets gas only from Russia, while the supplier has a monopoly the country has no hope of lowering prices in a competitive environment, Ansip said.
What the region needs is an LNG terminal, he said. If such a terminal were to be built, the very fact that another supplier could enter the market should force the monopoly supplier to lower prices or not raise them unreasonably high, Ansip said. At the same time, natural gas consumption in Estonia has been declining year after year, he added.
Gazprom holds a 51% stake in the Nord Stream consortium, BASF/Wintershall Holding and E.On Ruhrgas have a 15.5% stake each, and Nederlandse Gasunie and GDF Suez each have a 9% stake.
Each Nord Stream branch has capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year. In order to meet growing demand for gas in Europe, the consortium is studying the possibility of building additional branches of the pipeline, including one directly to the UK.
