Opal

The length of the pipeline is 470 kilometers. The diameter of the pipes is 1.4 meters.

The throughput is 36 billion cubic meters of gas per year ^[5] .

The compressor station is located in Radeland ( Brandenburg ) and is built on Siemens equipment. ^[6]

The cost of the pipeline is about 1 billion euros .

The gas pipeline runs from n.p. Lubmin , near Greifswald, to Olbernhau . It connects the Nord Stream pipeline with JAGAL (Yamal - Europe) and further with STEGAL (Central European Transit System) on the other hand. On the German-Czech border, the OPAL extension is the Gazelle gas pipeline, which runs through the Czech Republic and re- enters Germany, connecting with the MEGAL gas pipeline. ^[7]

The continuation in the Czech Republic is the Gazela gas pipeline . A 166-km gas pipeline starts from the village of Brandov on the Czech-German border . In transit through the Czech Republic passes to Bavaria , where it connects to the German gas transportation system.

Construction began in October 2010 and was commissioned in January 2013 . Its capacity is 30 billion m³, which is three times higher than the annual gas consumption in the Czech Republic. The possibility of reverse operation is also provided ^[8] . The cost amounted to 400 million euros, the investor was NET4GAS .

Germany and Russia are currently trying to remove the OPAL gas pipeline from the EU’s Third Energy Package , according to which 50% of the gas pipeline should belong to third parties, which Russia fundamentally cannot agree to because Gazprom is the only natural gas supplier Nord Stream ”, filling in turn OPAL. ^[9]

Efficient use of OPAL facilities would mean a decrease in the role of Ukraine as a transit country, and the commissioning of the Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream pipelines would mean a complete cessation of transit through its territory.

On October 28, 2016, information appeared on the achievement of a solution to this issue in favor of the withdrawal of the OPAL gas pipeline from the norms of the third energy package until 2033. ^{[10] [11]} .
On December 23, 2016, the European Court suspended the decision of the European Commission on the access of Russian Gazprom to the OPAL pipeline ^[12] , as an interim measure for the period of the trial. The decision was made at the suit of the Polish company PGNiG and the Polish government ^[13] .

In June 2017, the European Court refused to admit Gazprom as a third party in the case, and in July of the same year removed the interim measure established on December 23, 2016 ^[14] .

On August 3, 2017, it was reported that after the ban on the use of 40% of the OPAL pipeline’s capacities was lifted, Gazprom increased transit through it, the pipeline’s load increased by more than a quarter due to a reduction in gas transit through Ukraine. ^[15]

As an onshore continuation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the OPAL doubler, the EUGAL gas pipeline, is under construction. ^{[16] The} differences are in a greater capacity equal to the total capacity of the OPAL and NEL gas pipelines - 55 billion cubic meters per year and at another delivery point on the Czech border, located in Deutschendorf ^[17] .

Continuation of EUGAL in the Czech Republic is the NET4GAS company’s Capacity4Gas gas pipeline under construction (parallel to the existing Gazelle gas pipeline) ^[18] , with phased commissioning in 2019 and 2021. ^[19] The diameter of Capacity4Gas will be 1,400 mm; an increase in throughput will be achieved through the construction of the Gora-Swate-Katerini compressor station.