Pompeo: Nord Stream 2 undermines the economic and strategic security of Ukraine
During the joint press-conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin in Washington, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he believes that the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea undermines the economic and strategic security of Ukraine.
"We’ll keep working together to stop the Nord Stream 2 project that undermines Ukraine’s economic and strategic security and risks further compromising the sovereignty of European nations that depend on Russian gas,” Pompeo said.
Earlier, Petro Poroshenko held a meeting with US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry during which they agreed to further oppose Nord Stream 2.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will be laid along the Baltic Sea bed, joining suppliers in Russia with consumers in Europe. It will be over 1,200 kilometers long, with the capacity to transmit 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The project is estimated to cost almost 10 billion euro. The members of the consortium are Gazprom, Engie, OMV, Shell, BASF and Uniper.
Nord Stream 2 received full sets of permits for the construction and operation of the pipeline in Germany, Finland and Sweden. In August, British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt called on the EU to join the US sanctions against Russia and to block Nord Stream 2 that “undermines the energy policy of the EU.” According to him, it would be cheaper to invest in the modernization of Ukraine’s gas transport system.