Against all odds Nordstream 2, which for the past nearly 12 months looked as if it was literally dead in the water, is scheduled to resume construction on the last 120-km of the disputed pipeline on 5 December.

Nord Stream AG, the international consortium based in Zug, Switzerland and the company behind the German-Russian pipeline, announced plans to begin construction in December.  Work on the pipeline has been at a standstill since last December 2019 when companies began to pull out of the project as the United States threatened punitive sanctions.  The US has strongly opposed Germany's attempt to push ahead with construction.

The 1,230-kilometer pipeline will bring natural gas from Russia's Siberian gas fields to Germany, Europe's biggest economy.

The US and several of Germany's European partners (particularly Poland) have opposed the project, warning that Berlin will become too reliant on Russia for energy.

The announcement regarding the project's continuation was first reported by German radio broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk following a statement by the Baltic Sea Waterways and Shipping Office in Stralsund. The go-ahead allows the Nord Stream 2 company, majority-owned by Russian firm Gazprom, to finish the short stretch of the pipeline which remains.

Speculation has already begun on how President-Elect Biden will see the pipeline.