Report: US Senators ask president to slap sanctions on N Stream 2

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (PRIME) -- U.S. Senators James Risch and Jeanne Shaheen have asked President Joe Biden to introduce sanctions against Russian gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2, Bloomberg reported February 12.

"“The U.S. relationship with Germany is a cornerstone of the trans-Atlantic alliance,” the pair wrote. “But allowing the completion of Nord Stream II is not a constructive path forward for this partnership,” they said in a letter.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Biden's position is that Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal, and the U.S. will consider the sanctions.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told channel Rossiya 1 that Nord Stream 2 is more than 95% complete, and Russia is sure that it will be finished. He also said that there are no risks that the finished pipeline will remain without use.

"We are sure that in spite of the destructive approaches we see in the U.S., which is making progress of the project more lengthy, it will be built," Novak said. "I do not think that there are these risks, because our European partners are interested and the project complies with the European legislation fully, there is only competition of the U.S. partners who want to ship their liquefied natural gas to Europe. These are nonmarket competition methods in fact."

The Nord Stream-2 project envisages construction of two lines of a natural gas pipeline with an annual capacity of up to 55 billion cubic meters, running from the Russian shore to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Russian gas giant Gazprom is implementing the project together with Germany’s Unper and Wintershall, Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV, and France’s Engie.

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