Year-long delay to Belgium’s hydrogen pipeline project: is there legal recourse? – Ulrich Helm

A new 35km hydrogen pipeline between the Belgian villages of Zelzate and Kallo, on which construction was scheduled to start in Spring 2025, may now be delayed by up to a year. This pipeline is the first stage of Belgium’s national network of hydrogen pipelines which will connect Kallo and Zelzate between the ports of Antwerp and Ghent, from where the network will then be further extended across the region.

The delay to the Zelzate-Kallo pipeline has arisen because the local Permit Disputes Council decided to suspend an environmental permit that had been granted by the devolved Flemish Government. This followed a lawsuit that was filed by a coalition of fruit producers, who claimed that construction work on the pipeline might adversely affect their crops.

The Council decided to back the producers’ claim for an emergency suspension by halting construction until a more considered decision could be made on the merits of their case. Hopefully, this suspension will only be temporary. But according to the gas network operator Fluxys, which is building the pipeline, there are potentially severe implications for the project's scheduled completion date of Spring 2026 that could result in it being delayed by up to 12 months.

Across multiple jurisdictions, there is a long history of legal claims causing pipeline construction to be delayed, cancelled, or never completed. Disputes invariably follow.

The most notable recent example involves a bilateral agreement between Pakistan and Iran in 2010 to build an 80 km gas pipeline. The Iran-Pakistan pipeline project has been delayed for many years due to US sanctions proposals. Ultimately, because of Pakistan’s failure to build the pipeline in its territory, Iran filed an USD 18 billion arbitration in Paris last October seeking damages.

In March 2025, a North Dakota jury decided that the environmental group Greenpeace must pay at least USD 660 million to the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners. The high level of damages awarded arose from a defamation claim, as well as Greenpeace demonstrations and other allegedly damaging activities that caused delay nearly a decade ago during the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

Delays to pipelines and subsequent legal claims can arise for diverse reasons. In practice, companies may launch claims for extension of time and associated costs. The general contractor will then find itself in a "sandwich position" as its subcontractors will raise time extension claims against them.

For the affected parties, it is imperative to change gear immediately and consider the legal implications on every front - only by doing this as quickly as possible can the damage be effectively limited. If it is not, and a wait-and-see approach is taken or negotiations are relied upon instead, then the outcome can easily result in financial disaster.

If legal claims are fully prepared and ready to be served at the outset, then negotiations invariably become much easier to undertake and the conclusion is much more likely to be successful.

In these circumstances, it is strongly advisable to bring in experts sooner rather than later: to keep track of any financial harm that is caused and to calculate the time delay in line with the applicable law in the relevant jurisdiction(s). It is often observed that in such cases, although the claim for extension of the construction period and reimbursement of the related costs is upheld, the amount of the costs is disputed because the company has incurred these costs but cannot substantiate them and, above all, cannot prove that the extension of the construction period was the cause of these costs. The company should therefore document its loss as fully and in as much detail as possible, and as quickly as possible, seeking legal advice from the outset to ensure that it meets causation requirements.

However, when the contractor does not want to jeopardise its relationship with the client which is paying for its services they often postpone preparing their legal case diligently. But such customer-orientated approach often is regretted as it makes it either more difficult or even impossible to recover the losses occurred at the end of the day.