The Danish Energy Agency has awarded an updated permit for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, allowing the Nord Stream 2 project company to use pipe-laying vessels with anchors to complete the 55 bcm/year Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Danish waters. In October 2019, the Danish Energy Agency granted a permit to Nord Stream 2 to build a gas pipeline south-east of Bornholm, proposed in May 2019. It preferred this path based on environmental and safety considerations. Pipe-laying vessels with anchors were not included in the construction permit.
A consortium associating Gazprom (50%), Uniper, Shell, OMV, Wintershall, and Engie (10% each) is building the 1,230 km-long Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The project, which will double the throughput of the current Nord Stream pipeline, is causing controversy as Germany would increase its dependence on Russian gas while bypassing Ukraine. In January 2020, Russia postponed the commissioning of Nord Stream 2 from mid-2020 to the end of 2020 or early 2021, due to US sanctions against the gas pipeline that could delay the projects by several months. In May 2020, the General Court of the European Union dismissed Nord Stream 2’s project developers challenge to EU unbundling regulations. The same month, the German regulator (Bundesnetzagentur) had refused to grant a derogation from EU unbundling regulations to Nord Stream 2 operators for the section of the gas pipeline located in Germany.