Eins seemed safe in the energy crisis provoked by the Russian attack on Ukraine: Norway can be counted on. The northern kingdom, Europe’s largest exporter of oil and natural gas, is reliably pumping large volumes of natural gas through pipelines on the seabed and is poised to increase supplies even further in the future.
Since this Tuesday there is suddenly a question mark behind it. A strike has paralyzed several production platforms in the North Sea – a few days before the scheduled maintenance work on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea begins, which some observers believe Russian President Vladimir Putin could use to interrupt supplies from the East for political reasons.
The strike was called by the union of skilled workers in the Norwegian offshore industry. He started on Tuesday night on three North Sea oil platforms operated by the majority state-owned company Equinor (formerly Statoil). Oil is mainly produced there and hardly any natural gas. Three more Equinor platforms are to be added on Thursday night. One of them produces 40 million standard cubic meters of natural gas every day, which are fed into the southbound pipelines with a diameter of up to one meter and reach the Lower Saxony coast near Emden or Dornum. This corresponds to almost a third of the amount of natural gas that Norway has recently exported to Germany on average every day. If the industrial dispute is not resolved in the coming week, the union is threatening to shut down large parts of the pipeline network in the North Sea, which the state-owned company Gassco operates, in addition to additional production platforms.
What Germany has no influence on
The result would be enormous economic damage for Norway, not to mention geopolitical concerns about gas supplies in Europe. The union represents only a small proportion of workers in the Norwegian oil and gas industry; there are just 1200 skilled workers and foremen. Without them, however, little works in the extraction of raw materials. The reason for the largest strike in decades in the industry? “We are systematically disadvantaged compared to other employees, our real wages have been falling for years,” says Audun Ingvartsen, head of the divisional union, in an interview with the FAZ
The industrial workers’ union, which has many more members, agreed in the spring with employers such as Equinor and American competitor Conoco Phillips on a wage increase of 3.7 percent. According to the companies, the skilled workers should have followed this framework agreement with a slight delay. However, the majority of union members voted against it in a ballot. “We don’t do that,” says trade unionist Ingvartsen. “The inflation rate in Norway is now 5.7 percent. And the corporations earn a lot from the increased commodity prices.”
With a surcharge of half a percentage point, says Ingvartsen, the conflict would probably be settled. A petitesse compared to the sums otherwise at stake. The fact that the conflict escalated to the extreme is unlikely due to a special feature of Norwegian labor law. There, unlike in Germany, there is the instrument of compulsory state arbitration. If the government takes action, the union would have to end its strike quickly.
“Independent of the Russian Blackmailer”
Nevertheless, the situation makes it clear how much Germany’s energy supply depends on factors that the country itself cannot influence. In this specific case, this applies at least as much to Great Britain, Belgium and France. Overall, these countries import less gas from Norway than Germany. However, the part of the natural gas infrastructure that could be out of action if a labor dispute continues next week primarily affects the pipelines leading from the drilling platforms in the North Sea to these three countries.
The pipelines to Germany, which are between 440 and 660 kilometers long and are called Norpipe, Europipe and Europipe 2, are largely independent of this, along with the associated pumps and compressors. “Germany could therefore still get the full delivery quantity even in the worst case,” said Alfred Skår Hansen, the Gassco engineer responsible for the pipeline network, the FAZ
The Europipe 2 line also plays a decisive role in another major project: the “Baltic Pipe” is scheduled to go into operation at the beginning of October. This underwater pipeline, which is almost 300 kilometers long, will then supply Denmark and especially Poland with Norwegian gas. It is fed by a branch of Europipe 2, which is why the German side has already asked whether Germany will therefore receive less gas. When the Baltic line reaches its full capacity, it should be able to transport 10 billion cubic meters per year.
To be on the safe side, the state-dominated gas production company PGNiG has secured the production rights in the Norwegian Sea. Denmark and Poland will share most of the equivalent of 2 billion euros in construction costs for the Baltic Pipe. Both countries belong to the group in the EU that, according to their own statements, will be able to make ends meet without Russian gas in the future. Poland will let the supply contract with the Russian Gazprom group expire at the end of the year. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told Radio Poland during a visit to the construction site in the spring that the new pipeline “makes us independent today from the Russian blackmailer who is pointing the gun at the western European countries”.
