Baltic Pipe has obtained the first administrative decisions for the Project implementation in Denmark. On 12th July 2019 the Danish Environment Protection Agency issued two environmental decisions related to the onshore pipeline location: one for GAZ-SYSTEM S.A. and the other for Energinet – the Danish national transmission operator for gas and electricity.

The decision for GAZ-SYSTEM S.A. covers the section where the offshore pipeline enters the land as well as the construction of the microtunnel up to the shoreline. Thanks to the trenchless microtunneling technology, the environmental impact will be minimised and the pipeline construction will leave the Danish beach and cliff intact.

Baltic Pipe is a strategic project  aimed at creating new corridor for natural gas  supply from Norwey to  Dunish and Polish markets, as well as to end-users from neighboring countries. Once delivered, the investment will  strengthen the energy security of Poland and the entire Central and Eastern Europe, while increasing competitiveness of the Polish natural gas market. The pipeline is set to transfer 10 bn  m3 of natural gas a year from Denmark to Poland.  The construction work are expected to kick off in 2020, making it possible to import natural gas from the Norwegian Continental Shelf in 2022.

The Polish has pipeline operator Gaz-System is a strategic Poland’s company managing crucial gas pipelines in the coutry.

In January 2019 the European Commission granted the project with co-financing for the construction works in the maximum amount of EUR 215 million. In 2017 and 2018 the subsidy included engineering works and amounted to the maximum of EUR 51.45 million. Under the 2015  competition the project received the assistance of nearly EUR 0.4 million to conduct the feasibility study. The total amount of the EU support for the Baltic Pipe project is maximum EUR 266.77 million.

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is a key EU funding instrument to promote growth in three sectors - transport, energy and digital services. To qualify for the grant, the project should have the PCI (Project of Common Interest) status. It is a status granted to projects with the purpose of strengthening the European internal energy market by reaching the EU’s energy policy objectives of affordable, secure and sustainable energy. The Baltic Pipe project was included in all existing PCI lists adopted in 2013, 2015 and 2017 respectively.

Source: Baltic-pipe.eu, Energinet.dk

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