REUTERS - “The project will definitely be financed. It is important for Gazprom and Russia currently has a high liquidity in euros,” Paul Corcoran, the Nord Stream 2 CFO, told Welt am Sonntag in an interview.

REUTERS - Germany has been assured by the United States that any sanctions imposed on Russia will not affect the building of a gas pipeline to bring Russian gas to Europe, a spokeswoman for the German economy ministry said on Friday.

OGJ - Sandra Oudkirk, deputy assistant secretary for energy diplomacy at the US Department of State, confirmed that the Trump administration has received several requests to sanction the proposed Gazprom-sponsored pipeline that would extend from Russia beneath the Baltic Sea to Germany.

REUTERS - Washington was focused on using diplomatic means to halt Nord Stream 2, one of several Russian projects to export gas to western Europe via routes avoiding Ukraine, with which Moscow is involved in a series of disputes.

REUTERS - A consortium of western companies and Russia’s Gazprom that is due to build the controversial subsea Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany said on Tuesday it was starting preparatory work in the Greifswald bay off Germany’s Baltic coast.

GAZPROM - Nord Stream 2 AG received the second permit required for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Finnish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), thereby completing the permitting procedure in Finland.

OGJ - Sandra Oudkirk, deputy assistant secretary for energy diplomacy at the US Department of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources, said Nord Stream 2 matters to the US because it would cement a transportation system in place that could perpetuate dependence on Russian gas for some key US allies. “It would not increase the amount of gas coming into Europe, only replace volumes that now are being transported through Ukraine,” she said.

GAZPROM - In early 2018, the demand for gas is still on the rise in the country. According to estimates, from January 1 through February 21, 2018, Gazprom delivered to Austria 1.8 billion cubic meters of gas, a rise of 60.6 per cent against the same period of 2017 (1.1 billion cubic meters).

Nord Stream 2 AG signed financing agreements for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project with ENGIE, OMV, Shell, Uniper and Wintershall.

Russian state gas exporter Gazprom, which supplies around a third of the EU's gas, with much coming via Ukraine, is keen for Nord Stream 2 to be built by 2019, when it must renegotiate gas transit fees with Kiev.