by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
At the beginning of this month, Bild, the German media sensationalist, claimed to have discovered “incredible developments between [Presidents] Trump and Putin. And they affect Germany! Bild research reveals secret talks between the US and Russia in Switzerland. It’s about an explosive gas deal for Germany! At the centre of the affair: once again the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2.”
The Bild story alleged that Trump’s envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, made several visits for negotiations at the headquarters of Nord Stream 2 AG — the Baltic seabed pipeline’s operator, wholly owned by Russia’s sanctioned Gazprom — in Steinhausen, in the Swiss canton of Zug. Grenell has denied the story.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, added there was no point in his commenting on Bild’s claims because Grenell “has already denied it. And so the Americans have denied it. Also, there is a lot of information [in the Bild publication] that is not true.”
The Bild report followed just hours after a report appeared in London by the Financial Times maintaining that “a former spy and close friend of Vladimir Putin has been engineering a restart of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the backing of US investors, a once unthinkable move that shows the breadth of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow. The efforts on a deal, according to several people aware of the discussions, were the brainchild of Matthias Warnig, an ex-Stasi officer in East Germany who until 2023 ran Nord Stream 2’s parent company for the Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom.”
The anonymous sources told the newspaper “Warnig’s plan involved outreach to the Trump team through US businessmen as part of back-channel efforts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine while deepening economic ties between the US and Russia. Some prominent Trump administration figures are aware of the initiative to bring in US investors, according to officials in Washington, and they see it as part of the push to rebuild relations with Moscow.”
Warnig told the FT he was “not involved in any discussions with any American politicians or business representatives.”
Stephen Lynch, a well-known arbitrageur between Russian and US asset buyers and sellers following the Yukos oil company’s nationalization between 2004 and 2007, was reportedly behind some of the fresh media leaks, according to which “one US-led consortium of investors has drawn up the outlines of a post-sanctions deal with Gazprom, according to one person with direct knowledge of talks who declined to disclose the identity of the prospective investors.” For Lynch’s record, including his attempt at a hostile takeover of gas assets of Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in 2016, click to read the archive.
While Lynch has been promoting a Nord Stream takeover for his own commercial reasons, the planting of the story in Bild and the FT may have been an attempt by European officials to kill it.
“Senior EU officials,” according to the London newspaper, “became aware of the Nord Stream 2 discussion in recent weeks. Leaders of several European countries are concerned and have discussed the matter, according to several officials with knowledge of the discussions…The latest plan would in theory give the US unparalleled sway over energy supplies to Europe, the people said, after EU countries moved to end their dependence on Russian gas in the aftermath of the invasion.”
Russian analysis of these purported dealmakers and their targets has been compiled in this new piece, published on March 18 by the Moscow business weekly, Expert. In its assessment of the German and British claims, Expert concludes that American speculators are being attracted to the potential profit in schemes for buying low-priced Russian assets currently under sanctions; lobbying the Trump Administration to lift the sanctions as part of an end-of-war settlement in the Ukraine; and then reselling the assets if and when business with Russia revives and the Russian asset prices return to pre-war market levels. Lobbying the Trump Administration is the polite term for this.
According to Expert, a scheme to dismantle the current sanctions and refill the single, undamaged pipe of Nord Stream 2 with Gazprom gas for Germany is between improbable and impossible. However, an alternative with better chances for speculators is a buyout of Rosneft’s German oil refinery at Schwedt.
Source: https://johnhelmer.net/
Left, Matthias Warnig; right, Richard Grenell.
Source: https://expert.ru/v-mire/zavod-i-gazoprovod-ishchut-novogo-vladeltsa/
From 2006 the aluminium oligarch Oleg Deripaska held a blocking stake in Expert until the company defaulted on bank loans following an abortive business television venture. It was then put into bankruptcy on the application of VEB Bank in 2021. The state bank has subsequently reorganized the company and its editorial direction; VEB now controls the board.
March 18, 2025
Plant and gas pipeline looking for new owner
What are the prospects for the US of Nord Stream and
German refineries of Rosneft
By Anastasia Lvova
Last week, a number of Western media reported on the negotiations between Russia, the United States and Germany on the resumption of Russian energy supplies to Western European countries. Energy experts interviewed by the editorial board are skeptical about the prospects of such negotiations, however. They believe that buying shares in the refineries would be beneficial to all three countries. But restarting the Nord Stream gas pipeline would not be beneficial even to the initiator of the negotiations, the United States.
What has been written about the negotiations
According to Correctiv, American companies are interested in buying shares in three German refineries of Rosneft, where Russian oil was previously sent via the Druzhba pipeline. In November 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he was negotiating the sale of a stake in one of them (PCK Schwedt) to Kazakhstan. In December, the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan denied interest in the project. Bild reported on March 2 that Russia and the United States are working on restarting the remaining intact line of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which may also have American owners.
Nordstreams at the bottom
The interest of American investors in the acquisition of Nord Stream 2, one branch line [pipe A] of which survived the explosions in 2022, became known back in November 2024. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that American businessman Stephen Lynch had asked the US government to grant him a licence to bid if the pipeline was put up for auction. The investor argued that this would be “a unique opportunity for America and Europe to control energy supplies until the end of the fossil fuel era.” Back then, analysts were inclined to believe that this deal was unlikely, because the operating company was under US sanctions. In addition, the reason for imposing sanctions against Nord Stream 2 was precisely the fact that Russia would earn money through this pipeline (Gazprom was supposed to supply it).
MAP OF NORD STREAM PIPELINES 1 AND 2
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/dc9c51ab-03cb-47ba-ad0a-09c4deed9b50
The sabotage of September 26, 2022, struck both pipes A and B of the older Nord Stream 1 pipeline; however, only pipe B of Nord Stream 2 was hit, leaving pipe A capable of operation. It has a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year. This is almost comparable to the now suspended Russian gas pipeline across Ukraine, whose annual capacity is 29.5 billion cubic metres. For background, click.
Source: https://www.wsj.com/
However, this interest of a private investor from the United States is not enough for the deal, Alexei Belogoryev, research director at the Institute of Energy and Finance, told Expert: “I don’t see any political forces in Germany which would support the sale of the Nord Streams. Not counting the Alternative for Germany and the far left, which are on the periphery. Restoring gas supplies has been a political problem for Germany until 2022, and even more so now.”
For such a deal and the launch of supplies, would require, in addition to the political will of Germany, the approval of the European Commission, as well as of Denmark, through whose waters the pipeline runs, because the pipeline needs to be certified.
According to Alexander Frolov, an expert at the Infotech Analytical Center, the restoration of Russian gas exports to Germany is unlikely. Among the potential problems, he cites a decrease in gas consumption in Europe — from 2021 to 2024, consumption in the European Union decreased from 415 billion to 332.5 billion cubic metres per year; taking into account UK consumption, the reduction has amounted to about 100 billion cubic metres. Lack of political will in Germany, which is unlikely to be influenced by the United States, and there are as well issues with Gazprom’s “liabilities” claimed against the company by its former European purchasers. “As soon as German companies would receive Russian gas again, if this happens, they would immediately requisition the revenues to pay off these debts,” Frolov is sure.
Belogoryev says that the US interest in Nord Stream is totally incomprehensible: “The United States has declared that it would annually introduce 15-20 million tonnes of new gas liquefaction capacity — they would need to place this volume somewhere. It will be necessary to increase supplies to Europe and squeeze out LNG from other countries, including the Russian. The pipeline gas would become a direct competitor to these new volumes. In addition, it is also a threat of lower prices. It is important for any player to sell not only more, but also more expensive gas.” He acknowledges that for Russia it would be beneficial to restore the supply of any energy resources.
Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), speaking on the sidelines of the March 18 Congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, was evasive in answering a question from journalists about negotiating with the United States to involve US companies in Russian pipeline gas supply projects. “After all, the political issues are now a higher priority. The resolution of these issues is now at the forefront. At the same time, various economic areas are being discussed where dialogue can be established, from the Arctic to cooperation on the climate agenda and other sectors, such as energy. It is still very early to talk about any specific projects — there is a lot of speculation in the press. Many people who are enemies of Russia are deliberately trying to float dubious stories in order, on the contrary, to prevent dialogue. An economic dialogue is underway, but it is not in the format of specific, short-term projects. It is currently in the format of various areas where we could be useful to each other.”
Kirill Dmitriev, left, at the Riyadh round of talks on a Ukraine settlement with the US on February 19. He was then promoted in a presidential decree to be President Putin’s special representative for business negotiations with the Trump Administration and US companies. For more detail, read this.
Rosneft Oil Refinery in Germany
Both experts call the possible entry of Americans into the capital of the Rosneft refinery in Germany a more likely scenario. We are talking about the refinery in Schwedt (where Rosneft owns 54.17%), as well as the plants MiRO GmbH & Co (24%) and Bayernoil (28.57%). “If everything is shaky and fragile with regard to gas, and the number of ambiguities is so great that it is not even clear how to begin to resolve this issue, then there is no such burden and frenzy with regard to Rosneft’s infrastructure,” admits Frolov. Rosneft, according to him, has invested about €5 billion in the modernization of its refineries in Germany and supplied oil there via Druzhba, some of which was never paid for.
MAP OF ROSNEFT’S MAIN ASSETS IN GERMANY
For background on Rosneft’s fight to retain its German assets, read this report from February 2024: https://johnhelmer.net/
“This debt could well be the subject of negotiations: either the company recovers its refineries and the payment for its oil, or receives compensation if the refineries are bought by another company. Formally, the assets have neither been nationalized nor transferred to another owner. There is something to talk about here: you can decide on your fate, on the possibility of compensation,” says Frolov.
According to Belogoryev, Russian Urals oil does not compete with American export grades — they have different chemical properties. It will also be easier for Germany to agree to such a deal, since “it is outside the field of the main political discussion”. “Finally, it is not essential ry to supply Russian oil to these refineries; it is possible to combine Russian with Kazakh. The United States may be interested in this purely financially — these refineries process a large volume of oil, these are good assets. It will be beneficial for us if the sale is accompanied by the restoration of at least part of the oil supply.”
Currently, the Schwedt plant is supplied with oil from the world market: from the German Baltic port of Rostock, through the Polish port of Gdansk, and from Kazakhstan via the Druzhba. “Attempts to strengthen the security of the domestic German market of petroleum products — under this pretext, Russian oil supplies were stopped — turned out to be rather a decrease in energy security, a decrease in operational stability. The Germans have to negotiate with several companies instead of one. It is the stability of supplies that suffers,” Frolov says, identifying another argument in favor of the deal.
Expert contacted the press services of the Ministry of Energy, Gazprom and Rosneft and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak for comments. By the time of publication of this text, no responses had been received from any of these structures.
Earlier, Alexander Novak told Reuters that at the moment negotiations on the resumption of Russian oil supplies to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline are not underway, and the restoration of gas supplies via Nord Stream 2 is “off the agenda.”
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