German pipemaker, Europipe, the 50/50 venture between Salzgitter and Dillinger Hüttenwerke says it has been told “to halt the production of steel tubes for the South Stream pipeline through to 1 January 2015.” This comes nearly three weeks after Russian president, Vladimir Putin cancelled the South Stream project to build a natural gas pipeline from Russia, across the Black Sea and into Southern Europe.

Just because Europipe has now officially received instruction from Amsterdam-based South Stream Transport, “this does not, however, mark the end to the pipeline project,” adds Europipe. It notes that is has been told to await further information from the South Stream consortium between now and 1 January.

“Until suspension by the consortium, the production and processing of the pipeline project had proceeded according to plan,” it tells Kallanish in a press release. This standstill coincides with the customary break for the public holidays at Christmas, and had in any case been factored into the company’s December production schedule, it concludes.

Early this year, Europipe announced that it expected to supply 450,000 tonnes of large diameter steel pipe for the first strand of the offshore section of South Stream – an order that was expected to “secure satisfactory basic capacity utilisation” for 12 months, according to Europipe, starting from the second quarter. Salzgitter and Dillinger planned to supply the necessary plate to the pipemaker.