Denmark greenlights construction of Baltic Pipe project

This will allow the transport of gas from Norway to Poland, reducing Poland's dependence on Russian gas

On 1 March, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency greenlighted the Baltic Pipe project, which seeks to create a new gas supply corridor in the European market and allow the transport of gas from Norway to Denmark and Poland. This, in turn, would reduce Poland’s dependence on Russian gas.

By granting the environmental permit, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency now allows the transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas Energinet to restart construction work on the gas pipeline.

In a press release, the operator reports that it first began working on the project in 2021. It was then forced to halt its operations when authorities rejected the permit it had obtained in 2019, citing environmental concerns. 

Protected animal species

The new environmental permit now takes into account these concerns, imposing several requirements to ensure the consideration of protected animal species during construction work. The project manager for Baltic Pipe, Søren Juul Larsen, commented on the permit and the months of delay, noting:

"We are really happy that we now finally have a new permit so we can finish the work. We are really busy catching up with the lost months so we can reach the goal of the project. We have agreed with our contractors that they will deploy more machines and people for the task, so that we can set the pace and be finished as soon as possible.”

Energinet will now restart construction on the eastern part of the Jutland peninsula and the western part of the island of Funen. The operator then plans to partially commission the pipeline from 1 October 2022.

The entire project is expected to be fully operational at an annual capacity of 10 billion cubic metres (BCM) of natural gas by 1 January 2023.