Exports of Russian natural gas to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline remained at a record high in 2020 of 59.2 billion cubic meters in 2021, the operator of the pipeline, the Nord Stream AG consortium, said.

“In 2021, 59.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas were transported through the Nord Stream pipeline to consumers in Europe. As a result, the pipeline was loaded to the level of 2020, when the highest level was reached since the start of operations,” stated Nord Stream AG.

The operator added that since the commissioning of the pipeline, more than 441 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas have been delivered through Nord Stream, according to Agerpres.

The Russian group Gazprom supplies natural gas to Germany through a series of pipelines located in the Baltic Sea, called Nord Stream. In 2015, Gazprom and a group of European companies, namely E.ON, Wintershall, Shell, OMV and Engie, signed an agreement for the Nord Stream-2 project, which involves the construction of two more pipelines in addition to the two already existing. With a length of 1,200 kilometers, Nord Stream 2 will double the carrying capacity of Nord Stream 1 to 110 billion cubic meters per year, so that more Russian natural gas will reach Germany directly via the Baltic Sea, without going through Ukraine.

The amount of gas delivered last year through Nord Stream exceeded the nominal capacity of the pipeline, of 55 billion cubic meters per year. The Russian group Gazprom claims that the gas pipeline can carry a larger amount of gas than the nominal one, thanks to some technological peculiarities.