The 1,234-kilometer Nord Stream 2 offshore pipeline was designed to double gas supplies between Russia and Germany, but with its completion last September, the German energy regulator suspended the certification process in November and froze it altogether in February, CNBC writes.

This massive $11 billion energy project, the laying of which began back in 2018, fell one of the first victims of the anti-Russian sanctions imposed on the country after the start of Russia’s special operation.

Even before the start of the operation, the stumbling block to the pipeline’s launch was the actions of Germany’s energy regulator, which suspended the certification process for the pipeline’s operation. But if until February the suspension was considered temporary, then after Russia recognized the independence of the two Donbass republics, the German government headed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz completely stopped the certification process, thus “burying” Nord Stream-2.

The geopolitical crisis that began in late February, unseen for many years, has put an end to any joint projects and business partnership between Russia and the West as a whole.

According to a senior fellow and head of geopolitics at the German Marshall Fund in the United States, the Nord Stream-2 project has been killed. It would be unthinkable for Germany or any other European country to now allow the pipeline to operate.

It seems that even the currently functioning pipelines in Europe have a questionable future, while Nord Stream-2 stands frozen in inactive status.

The EU’s collective response to Russia has been to divest from Russian oil and gas flows: the bloc has made a statement that it intends to cut Russian gas imports by two-thirds by the end of 2022, and plans to end its dependence on Russian fossil fuel imports altogether by 2030.

The Russian president announced that he would stop exporting gas to “unfriendly” countries unless payments for gas were henceforth made in rubles rather than in the compromised euro or dollar. The Group of 7 industrialized countries refused this demand.

Against the backdrop of acute geopolitical tensions in Europe, the future of the pipeline is now highly doubtful, according to energy analysts.

“We don’t believe Nord Stream 2 will ever be launched,” said Katerina Filippenko, chief European gas research analyst at Wood Mackenzie. – “It is hard to envision a rapprochement between Europe and Russia that could give the green light to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline even a few years from now.”

Since the pipeline project is a joint project, the foreign energy companies involved in Nord Stream-2 are suffering heavy losses amid a massive withdrawal of Western business from Russia. These include AG, the Swiss subsidiary of Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom (MCX:GAZP), Germany’s Uniper SE (DE:UN01), which participated in its financing, Wintershall Dea, a subsidiary of chemical giant BASF, as well as Engie SA (PA:ENGIE), OMV Petrom SA DRC (LON:PETBq) and Shell PLC (BS:SHELl). Wintershall Dea announced a write-down of its EUR1 billion ($1.1 billion) financing.

Meanwhile, the official explanation for the pipeline going dormant is a statement from the German regulator itself, the Federal Network Agency, which said a prerequisite for certification of the Nord Stream 2 operator is a positive assessment by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate that the security of gas supply is not at risk. “This condition is no longer fulfilled,” the regulator said, adding that it could not certify the company at this time and that operating the pipeline without certification would be illegal.

“A purely economic project to bring cheaper gas to Europe,” according to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, has now run into insurmountable political obstacles, and not just because of Russian special operations or sanctions: behind the decision is the EU’s broader intention to become independent of Russian energy by 2030.

The operator of Nord Stream 2 may want to wait and see how things develop further and whether there is any future for the pipeline, but if not, it will have to make a decision: either abandon the pipeline or rebuild it. However, the latter would obviously be an expensive operation.

It can be said with complete clarity that the fate of Nord Stream-2 will largely be determined by how Russia’s special operation ends, and who will ultimately dictate its terms. There are fears that no one will win in this conflict, experts say.There are speculations that the Nord Stream-2 pipeline and others could be used to transport hydrogen in the future, and that Russia will be a potential supplier of hydrogen. All of this depends on Germany’s own will: whether it will eventually want to revive energy relations with Russia, the experts say.