The OPAL (''Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbindungsleitung'') is a natural gas pipeline in Germany alongside the German eastern border. The OPAL pipeline is one of two projected pipelines connecting the

Nord Stream 1 Nord Stream (German-English mixed expression; german: Nord and en, Stream, literally 'North Stream'; russian: Северный поток, ''Severny potok'') is a pair of offshore natural gas pipelines in Europe that run under the Baltic Sea ...

pipeline to the existing pipeline grid in Middle and Western Europe, the other one being the

NEL pipeline The NEL (Nordeuropäische Erdgasleitung (English: Northern European natural gas pipeline), formerly known as Norddeutsche Erdgasleitung, is a long natural gas pipeline in Germany. Route The pipeline runs from Lubmin near Greifswald through Süls ...

Route

The long pipeline runs from

Lubmin Lubmin () is a coastal resort in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Lubmin is situated near Greifswald and on the Bay of Greifswald. Apart from tourism, Lubmin is a major transport and industry hub and investment location in the German ...

near

Greifswald Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (german: Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostoc ...

to Olbernhau near German-Czech border. It connects the Nord Stream pipeline with the

JAGAL JAGAL (''Jamal-Gas-Anbindungsleitung'') is a German section of the Yamal-Europe pipeline. The pipeline is used for the Russian natural gas import and it is owned and operated by Gascade Gastransport GmbH. It runs from the Polish–German border ...

(distributes gas from the Yamal-Europe pipeline), and the

STEGAL STEGAL (''Sachsen-Thüringen-Erdgas-Anbindungsleitung'') is a natural gas pipeline in Saxony and Thuringia, Germany. It connects the Czech Transgas pipeline at Olbernhau and the JAGAL pipeline (exporting gas from the Yamal–Europe pipeline) at ...

(distributes gas from the Central-European Russian gas transit system (Transgas) via

Czechia The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The Cz ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

) pipelines in Germany. On the German-Czech border the pipeline is connected with the

Gazela Pipeline Gazela is a natural gas pipeline in the Czech Republic. It is operated by Net4Gas, a company owned by Allianz Capital Partners and OMERS Infrastructure. The project cost around €400 million. History Construction started on 14 October 2 ...

, to connect gas export pipelines in Czechia.

Technical features

The diameter of the pipeline is and it has an operating pressure up to . The capacity of the pipeline is per year of natural gas. The compressor station in Radeland, Brandeburg, is built by

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

. The pipeline cost around €1 billion. The construction was completed in 2011 and in August 2011 Nord Stream was connected with the OPAL pipeline.

Project company

The pipeline was constructed by OPAL NEL TRANSPORT GmbH, a subsidiary of

Wingas Wingas GmbH is a gas distribution company located in Kassel, Germany. It is a subsidiary of Gazprom, which held its shares through W&G Beteilligungs-GmbH & Co. KG. History Wingas was established in 1993 by BASF subsidiary Wintershall and Gazp ...

. It is operated by OPAL Gastransport GmbH & Co KG, owned by WIGA Transport Beteiligungs-GmbH & Co. KG, a joint venture of

Wintershall Dea Wintershall Dea GmbH is a German gas and oil producer. The joint venture was created in May 2019 by the merger between Wintershall Holding GmbH and DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG. BASF SE has a 67% stake in it, with the other 33% being held by LetterO ...

and

Gazprom PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐzˈprom) is a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. As of 2019, with sales over $120 billion, it was ranked as the larges ...

Access by Gazprom

Polish state-run gas firm

PGNiG Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo S.A. ( en: Polish Oil Mining and Gas Extraction S.A.), abbreviated to PGNiG, is a Polish state-controlled oil and gas company, headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. The company has branches and representative ...

and PGNiG Supply & Trading tried to restrict

's access to the pipeline. Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf lifted the restrictions After the decision Gazprom increased the throughput to 72.5 million m³/d (26.462 billion/year).

References

External links