“Wintershall determined to take part in Nord Stream 2“

Wintershall, Germany’s largest crude oil and natural gas producer, is determined to take part in the Euro-Russian gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports. BASF subsidiary Wintershall said that, like its partners - Russian gas giant Gazprom and European companies Uniper, OMV, Shell and Engie - it believed the project “is of central importance to the European energy concept,“ FAZ writes. A participation model in which Gazprom would have held 50 percent of the 10 billion euro project’s shares and the other partners 10 percent each was scrapped last August as Poland’s competition authority singalled it would not issue a license.
Poland and other eastern European states fear that Nord Stream 2 will further enable Russia to circumvent their countries for selling gas to western Europe. Construction is due to start in the second half of 2017, FAZ says.

For background, read the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and its implications for international security and the CLEW factsheet Germany’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.