Transgas pipeline

This article describes the European natural gas pipeline route. For the TransGas pipeline in Canada, see Transgas (Canada) .

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

Pipeline network from Russia to Western Europe

The TRANSGAS route (also spelled: Transgaz ; Cyrillic: Трансгаз) is a route of high-pressure natural gas pipelines from Ukraine through Slovakia and the Czech Republic to Austria and Germany .

The route is primarily used to carry long-distance gas from Russia or the former Soviet Union . When it was built in 1970–1973, the route was the first and then for more than 25 years the only major transit pipeline for supplying Western and Central Europe from the rich natural gas reserves of Siberia and Central Asia . Although several alternative routes have now been built, more than two thirds of Russian gas supplies to Western Europe still flow via the Transgas route.

history

Planning and construction

The Soviet Union (USSR) began building pipelines in the 1960s to supply its western parts of the country, including the largest of them the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), with natural gas. The lines should be continued to the west in order to also supply the allies of the USSR in the Warsaw Pact , the “ socialist brother countries ” of the Czech Republic and the GDR with energy. The first major route was the “Brotherhood” pipeline ( Russian: Братство , Bratstvo ) completed in 1967 , which runs from the Siberian Urengoy gas field east of Nadym over a distance of around 2750 km to Uzhhorod in the Ukraine.

The planning and construction of the Transgas route, which connects to the west of the Brotherhood route, go back to the end of the 1960s, when the East-West conflict entered a phase of relaxation and increasing dialogue. The USSR was already negotiating natural gas deliveries with western states and companies in the run-up to the Eastern Treaty : after negotiations with the Italian ENI had failed in 1967, the following year 1968 a successful contract was signed with the Austrian ÖMV , and talks were also held with Germany guided. In the German-Soviet natural gas pipe contract in 1970, the delivery of gas to the German company Thyssen-Ruhrgas was promised in return for natural gas pipes .

In the first phase from 1971–1973, the entire length of the route was prepared and lines with a nominal width of DN 1200 were laid to the branch to Austria and DN 900 further to the east and west German border. To expand the capacity, additional, parallel lines were laid in several construction phases on the same route in the following years, and in what would later become the Czech Republic, a new branch of the route was planned and built as a shortcut.

The operator of the Czechoslovak pipeline network was the company Tranzitní plynovod Praha , founded in 1971 and internationally known under the abbreviation Transgas .

Czech-Slovak division and privatization

After the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the Czechoslovak gas pipeline network and thus also the transit pipeline were divided:

The Czech part of the pipeline went to ČPP Transgas , a subsidiary of the Czech gas supplier České plynárenské podniky (ČPP). In 2001 the state-owned company was privatized and the German energy supplier RWE took over the majority of the shares. In 2006 the transmission system operator RWE Transgas Net , which has been trading under the name Net4Gas since 2010, was spun off from RWE Transgas as part of unbundling in accordance with EU requirements .

The Slovak part of the Transgas network was operated from 1993 by Slovtransgaz , a largely autonomous sub-unit of the Slovak gas supplier Slovenský plynárenský priemysel (SPP). After privatization in 2002 and unbundling in 2006, this initially became SPP-preprava , which was renamed eustream in 2008 .

Disputes and construction of alternative routes

Capacity in comparison

Surname	Capacity [billion m³ / a]
Transgas	120
Yamal Europe (northern branch, via Poland)	33
Nord Stream Nord Stream II (Completion suspended)	55 55
South Stream (discontinued)	63

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, through which Ukraine became politically independent from Russia, increasing disagreements developed between the two countries over the reasonable remuneration that Ukraine should receive for the passage of Russian gas to the Transgas pipeline. The Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute culminated several times from 2005 onwards in the fact that the amount passed through was greatly reduced by the Ukrainian side, whereupon the Russian side temporarily stopped deliveries.

In order not to be completely dependent on the Transgas route - and thus on the transit countries, especially Ukraine - Russia looked for alternative routes and planned several alternative routes. As early as 1997 , the alternative JAMAL route was completed north of the Transgas route through Belarus and Poland . Despite these alternatives, the majority (around three quarters) of Russian gas continued to flow via the Transgas route to Western Europe. In 2007, however, there were disputes between Russia and Belarus because of the passage through this route . The third route, the Nord Stream route through the Baltic Sea, was completed in 2011 . The completion of a parallel Nord Stream II route is currently (as of December 2019) suspended shortly before completion due to the threat of sanctions by the USA.

An alternative route was also planned south of the Transgas route with the South Stream pipeline over the Black Sea and the Balkans. This project has now been discontinued, the reason for the discontinuation was the EU's Third Energy Package , which provides for the unbundling of the supplier and pipeline operator, and the changed political situation after the Crimean crisis . Other routes in the south that are not or only partially intended for the transmission of Russian gas to Western Europe are the Blue Stream , White Stream and Nabucco routes (also discontinued in the meantime).

course

TRANSGAS

→ Yamal-Europe route (south) ← Soyuz route ← Brotherhood route ÜS Uzhhorod  UA border ÜS / VS Veľké Kapušany  SK → YAMAL II route (from Poland) VS Jablonov nad Turňou VS Veľké Zlievce VS Ivanka pri nitre KP Plavecký Peter ÜS Brodské border border ÜS Lanžhot  CZ  A. ÜS Baumgarten → STORK route (from Poland) → DAY route VS Břeclav KP Malešovice VS Kralice nad Oslavou VS Hostim VS Kouřim VS Veselí nad Lužnicí KP Hospozín VS Strážovice → Cross line GAZELLE ÜS Hora Sv. Kateřiny / Brandov KP Rozvadov border border VS Sayda / ÜS Olbernhau  D.  D. ÜS Waidhaus → Route OPAL → MEGAL route ← STEGAL route ← Route MET

Ukraine

Three major routes for Russian gas converge in western Ukraine: the “Brotherhood” (Bratstvo) route comes from the north of Siberia, from the Urengoy gas field . Also from the north of Siberia, from the Jamal Peninsula , there is a branch of the Yamal-Europe route ( YAMAL for short ) via Belarus . The third route, “ Unity ” (SOYUZ) , comes from the southern, Central Asian part of Russia near Orenburg near the border with Kazakhstan.

The three lines cross the Ukrainian-Slovakian border after merging in a compressor station south of Uzhhorod ( ).

Slovakia

The Transgas pipeline begins behind the Slovakian border at the Veľké Kapušany compressor station ( ). After another branch of the YAMAL pipeline from Poland was added shortly after the border, the pipeline runs via compressor stations at Jablonov nad Turňou ( ), Veľké Zlievce ( ) and Ivanka pri Nitre ( ) through southern Slovakia. In the west of Slovakia, near Plavecký Peter ( ), the line branches into a northern and a southern route. The southern one connects to the Trans Austria gas pipeline (TAG) on the Slovak-Austrian border, near Baumgarten an der March ( ) . The north crosses the Slovak-Czech border river March behind the Brodské station ( ) via a bridge .

Czech Republic

The Czech part of the route begins behind the border at Lanžhot ( ) station . A few kilometers further on, near Břeclav , there is a connection to the STORK distribution network coming from Poland ( Cieszyn ) .

South of Brno , near Malešovice ( ), the Transgas pipeline divides again into a southern and a northern branch:

The southern branch runs through three compressor stations at Hostim ( ), Veselí nad Lužnicí ( ) and Strážovice ( ) to the transfer station Rozvadov ( ) on the Czech-German border. On the German side, at Waidhaus in Bavaria ( ), the transfer to the northern branch of the Central European Gas Pipeline (MEGAL) takes place.

The northern branch runs through two compressor stations at Kralice nad Oslavou ( ) and Kouřim ( ) and a junction at Hospozín ( ), from where a cross connection to the southern route branches off, to Hora Svaté Kateřiny ( ) and Brandov ( ) on the German-Czech Border. Here on the German side, near Olbernhau ( ) and Sayda ( ) in Saxony, there are connections to the Baltic Sea Pipeline Connection Line ( OPAL), to the Saxony-Thuringia Natural Gas Line (STEGAL) and to the Central European Transversal (MET).

Since the beginning of 2013, the end points of the northern and southern branches have also been connected by the GAZELLE pipeline.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Katerina Malygina: The natural gas business with Ukraine: who will benefit from the new cooperation . In: Russia analyzes . No. 204 . Research Center Eastern Europe at the University of Bremen, Bremen July 2nd, 2010 ( full text online as PDF ).
2. ↑ Ksenia Borisocheva: Analysis of the Oil and Gas Pipeline Links between EU and Russia. An account of intrinsic interests . Center for Russia and Eurasia (CERE), Athens November 2007 ( online [PDF]).
3. ↑ Key date: February 1, 2005 - 35 years ago: Signing of the natural gas pipe contract in Essen: Pipeline through the iron curtain. WDR.de, accessed on February 12, 2013 . 
4. ↑ Luis-Martín Krämer: The energy security of Europe in relation to natural gas and the effects of a cartel formation in the gas sector . Inaugural dissertation to obtain the doctoral degree from the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne. Cologne 2011 ( online [PDF]).
5. ↑ ^{a b c} 40 years of natural gas transit through the Czech Republic . Net4Gas , Prague 2011 ( online as PDF ).
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Oldřich Petržilka: Gas Market in the Czech Republic . Presentation at the Central European Gas Congress, 15.-17. June 2011. Ed .: Czech Gas Union. Budapest June 2011 ( online [PDF]).
7. ↑ NET4GAS . Official website
8. ↑ Our company >> History: 40 years of safe and reliable gas transmission services. eustream , accessed February 13, 2013 . 
9. ↑ Zuzanna Valentová: Gas Crisis in Slovakia and its impact on the economy of the country . Bachelor's thesis. European Polytechnical Institute, Hodonín August 2010 ( full text online (SWF file; 2 MB)).
10. ↑ Transmission system. (No longer available online.) Eustream , archived from the original on February 19, 2018 ; Retrieved February 12, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Instruments for securing the gas supply. Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, accessed on February 12, 2013 . 
12. ↑ Pipeline Projects. How Europe should be supplied with gas. Tagesschau.de, December 7, 2012, accessed on February 12, 2013 . 
13. ^ The Baltic Sea Pipeline - A Pro and Con discussion on the Russian-German natural gas project . In: Klett magazine geography . Ernst Klett Schulbuchverlag, Leipzig 2006, p. 11–15 ( full text online [PDF]).
14. ^ Transmission and Storage System in the Czech Republic at a Glance. Online report. RWE, 2009, accessed February 12, 2013 . 
15. ↑ Transmission system. Net4Gas , accessed February 12, 2013 .