NORD STREAM GAS PIPELINE
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Nord Stream |
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The Nord Stream gas pipeline is a fundamentally new route for Russian gas exports to Europe. The target markets for gas supply via Nord Stream are Germany, the Great Britain, the Netherlands, France and Denmark. The new gas pipeline is very important in terms of meeting the growing demand in the European gas market.
In December 2000, the European Commission assigned the Nord Stream project the Trans-European Network (TEN) status.
There are no transit countries on Nord Stream’s route, which enables to reduce Russian gas transmission costs and exclude any possible political risks. Nord Stream will directly connect the Unified Gas Supply System of Russia (UGSS) and the European Gas Network providing the most reliable gas deliveries to customers in Western Europe. Nord Stream will also play a special role in deficit-free gas supply to the Kaliningrad Oblast.
In order to connect Nord Stream to UGSS, a new gas pipeline (917 km) will be built between the towns of Gryazovets and Vyborg on the territory of the Vologda and Leningrad Oblasts. Bringing this pipeline onstream will also make it possible to satisfy growing gas requirements in the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast.
The starting point of the Nord Stream sea section (1,198 km) will be a coastal compressor station to be constructed in the Portovaya Bay (near Vyborg, Leningrad Oblast). The route will run across the Baltic seabed to Greifswald on the German coast with a possible branch to Sweden. From Greifswald the pipeline will pass through the territory of Germany and the Netherlands to Bacton in the Great Britain.
Nord Stream will be constructed in compliance with the most rigid environmental standards, without disrupting the Baltic Sea ecosystem.
Nord Stream’s operating pressure will be 210 atm. To be commissioned in 2010, the 1st line of Nord Stream will have a throughput capacity of 27.5 bcm per year. The 2nd line is projected to double Nord Stream’s throughput capacity to 55 bcm per year.
Gas from UGSS will be the resource base for gas deliveries via Nord Stream.
The German companies BASF AG and E.ON AG are the partners of Gazprom in the Nord Stream project, with which the in-principle Agreement to construct the Nord Stream gas pipeline was signed in Berlin on September 8, 2005. Pursuant to the Agreement, the partners set up the German-Russian Nord Stream AG joint venture, which is 51 per cent owned by Gazprom and 24.5 per cent owned by BASF AG and E.ON AG each. Under the accords achieved between the parties, other companies might also be invited to join the project.
The first joint of Nord Stream was welded on December 9, 2005 in the Vologda Oblast (town of Babayevo).