The plan was for the gas pipeline to be completed by the end of 2019. But when there was only about 16 miles left to build, the United States decided that vessels working with Nord Stream 2 must immediately cease all construction operations if they want to avoid US sanctions.

The work is still standing. Nor can the company set a timetable for resuming work.

“That's why we have to look for new solutions to build the remaining 6 percent of our gas pipeline. Nord Stream 2 and the companies that assist our project are convinced that as soon as possible the construction of the gas pipeline is something that benefits Europe's energy security, European consumers, the EU's economic competitiveness and climate commitments, "answers Jens Mueller, spokesperson for Nord Stream 2, in an email to SVT News.

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will be approximately 2,460 kilometers long. It is closed in a Swedish economic zone in the Baltic Sea and will supply natural gas from Russia Photo: SVT Design

The stoppage was made on December 20, 2019 after US President Donald Trump signed a law on sanctions against companies participating in building the leadership from Russia to Germany.

At that time, 2,300 of about 2,460 kilometers were completed.

The project is primarily the Russian state-controlled Gazprom, but also non-Russian companies.

Million income to Blekinge

The port of Karlshamn stored pipes for the building from 2017 to 2019. It has brought large sums to the municipality. The port company has delivered SEK 83 million to the municipality and its holding company Stadsvapnet, which owns the port company, says the port's CEO.

- A large part of it comes from the Nord Stream deal. But I do not go into the profit level of every single business, ”says Mats Olsson, CEO at Karlshamn harbor to SVT News.

Pipes for Nordstream 2 were stored in Karlshamn harbor. Stock Photography. Photo: Johan Nilsson, TT

"Legally uncontroversial"

The project is legally uncontroversial since the first pipeline was approved in 2008. There are no obstacles under the Convention on the Law of the Sea to add another pipeline in the same zone, says Martin Kragh, Head of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Institute (UI).

- Primarily affected Ukraine, which with the project is excluded in the long term as transit country for Russian natural gas to the EU, he says and continues:

- Nordstream has thus been placed on the US sanctions list, as the US Congress considers the company as a Russian instrument of power. In the EU, it is mainly Germany that is demanding Russian gas since they shut down their own nuclear power plants, and it is the Russian-German cooperation that drives Nordstream forward despite all the criticism.