American businessman makes play for Russian natural gas pipelines
An American businessman who previously worked closely with Kremlin state oil champion Rosneft is seeking to acquire the Swiss-based operating company that controls Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines, according to U.S. Treasury and other documents obtained by the Washington Post.
The move is being pitched by former Moscow-based American entrepreneur Stephen Lynch as potentially laying the ground for the controversial natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany to be reactivated in case a cease-fire is reached in the war in Ukraine, the documents show.
The maneuvering comes as Europe braces for President-elect Donald Trump to push for negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, and as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz seeks to position himself as a peace broker. Scholz spoke by telephone with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week for the first time in nearly two years.
Lynch is portraying his bid as an acquisition that would “de-Russify” the pipeline network and put it under American control, according to the documents, including a copy of Lynch’s application sent in February to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that enforces U.S. sanctions.
The Swiss company, Nord Stream 2 AG, was sanctioned by the United States following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Arguing that Nord Stream 2 is facing bankruptcy proceedings that under Swiss law are due to start Jan. 1, a person involved in Lynch’s bid said that selling to the American businessman might be the most palatable of unattractive options for Nord Stream 2’s main owner, Gazprom, the Russian state gas monopoly, since Lynch is a person in whom Russia has a high level of trust.
Gazprom did not respond to requests for comment. Nord Stream 2’s office is closed and the company’s administrator Transliq said it could not comment on ongoing business.
Lynch worked closely with Rosneft, a Russian state-controlled oil company, in 2007 to try to acquire foreign assets belonging to the now-defunct oil major Yukos, whose owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky was imprisoned in Russia for 10 years before being allowed to live in exile outside Russia.
Lynch’s participation in the forced sale of the Yukos assets, together with a consortium of other Moscow-based foreign investors, faced criticism from former Yukos executives that he was acting to help legitimize the Russian state’s takeover of Yukos. The Dutch Supreme Court later found that the Yukos bankruptcy had been conducted in violation of “fundamental legal principles” and that Lynch and the other investors did not have title to the assets they won in the sale.
The OFAC application and other documents argue that an acquisition by Lynch – who is using the same company, Monte Valle, that was involved in the bidding for the Yukos assets – would be in the interest of the United States.
“A takeover by the Lynch-led American consortium would advance several important U.S. and allied foreign policy objectives and is a natural follow-on step to U.S. sanctions of (Nord Stream) – by wrenching it from Russian ownership at a steep discount and ensuring it can only be used to advance national interests,” Lynch said in a November note to U.S. officials pitching the deal.
A U.S. official questioned the rationale for any deal that could pave the way for reopening the pipeline. “There is nothing about a Nord Stream 2 revival that is in U.S. interests right now,” said the official, who – like others – spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “Beginning with the invasion of Ukraine, the recognition that Russian gas was a means of leverage over Europe was something that we didn’t like, that we thought was dangerous. and the Europeans themselves came to that conclusion and stopped buying Russian gas.”
A former U.S. intelligence official said Lynch’s claim that his purchase would bring the pipeline network under U.S. control was “very thin.”
Lynch’s Monte Valle Partners responded in a statement by saying: “Stephen Lynch is an American patriot and businessman following American laws, and acting first and always in the best interests of the U.S.”
OFAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Lynch was able to acquire another foreign-registered Russian state asset, the Swiss branch of Russian state bank Sberbank, in 2022, allowing U.S.-imposed sanctions to be lifted after OFAC granted him a license to purchase it. In his Nord Stream 2 application, Lynch noted his role in the Sberbank deal, saying it demonstrated his experience in “de-Russifying” sanctioned Russian assets and his ability to work with OFAC and with the Swiss government.
In other documents provided to the Post, Lynch said he had briefed the former and current Swiss ambassadors to the United States multiple times about the proposed deal. In a November document, he said it was “his understanding that Switzerland will support the plan subject to an OFAC license.” A spokesperson for the Swiss government confirmed the conversations took place at Lynch’s request, but said “at no point did the Embassy in Washington or the Swiss government in any way guarantee their support” for Lynch’s proposed bid.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been out of commission since Scholz halted its certification on Feb. 22, 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline had been planned to double the capacity of Nord Stream 1, and though it was completed in September 2021, it had not entered into service.
An explosion in September 2022 damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, but left one branch of Nord Stream 2 still operational.
The German government declined to comment on Lynch’s proposed acquisition of Nord Stream 2 or the future of Nord Stream 2 if a peace settlement between Moscow and Kyiv is reached.
Scholz is facing a no-confidence vote in December that is likely to end his chancellorship, and some critics in Berlin say he has been seeking to delay the vote while he presses for a peace deal with Ukraine. The maneuvering has prompted fears that an attempt to restart Nord Stream could become part of a package deal with Russia that Scholz could use to try to shore up his position on the German economy.
“I think (Scholz) wants to run the election campaign as chancellor of peace,” said Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, a former deputy director of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service and former German ambassador to Poland. “Many think his strategy is to broker some kind of deal with Putin which would end the Ukraine war and elevate Scholz back into power.”
Lynch has lined up powerful German lobbyists to back his deal, including Berlin Global Advisors, where a former German ambassador to Moscow who led efforts to launch Nord Stream 2, Rüdiger von Fritsch, is a leading partner, according to one of the documents provided to the Post.
Neither Berlin Global Advisors nor Fritsch responded to requests for comment.
One political rival, Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of parliament for the Christian Democratic Union, who serves on the Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said he believed there was a growing contingent in the German establishment supportive of restoring ties with Russia as the German economy falters. He pointed to reports of back-channel talks with Moscow led by Matthias Platzeck, a former chairman of the Social Democrats – Scholz’s party – during the chancellorship of Gerhard Schröder, and Ronald Pofalla, a CDU politician who was chief of staff to former chancellor Angela Merkel. “Germany is on the way again to closer links with Russia,” he said.
Records shared with the Post by the Dossier Center, a London-based investigative group founded by Khodorkovsky, show that Platzeck bought tickets to fly to Moscow in November 2023 and February 2024, while Pofalla bought tickets for the same time in February 2024.
German newspaper Die Zeit reported in October that the two were due to travel that month to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where they were to meet with Viktor Zubkov, the former prime minister and chairman of Gazprom, as well as with other Russian officials, according to documents cited by the newspaper.
Platzeck said any trips he made, including to Moscow, were as “a private citizen” and not at the request of any institution or individual. He declined to comment further or respond to questions about whether the meetings with Russian officials took place. Pofalla did not respond to a request for comment.
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Souad Mekhennet and Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report.