The Nord Stream gas pipeline project between Russia and Germany has
been delayed by six months, Interfax news agency reported Tuesday
citing the project's technical director Sergei Serdukov.
Construction of the pipeline, which is led by Russia's OAO
Gazprom (GAZP.RS), will now begin in June 2009 and the first gas will
be delivered on Nov. 30, 2010, two months later than initially planned,
Serdukov told journalists.
He put the delays down to the process of getting approval for the project from countries in the Baltic.
Nord Stream AG, the Russian-German consortium responsible for
the pipeline, is working with ABN Amro and Dresdner Kleinwort to help
finance the EUR5 billion project, Chief Executive Matthias Warnig said
at the same meeting.
The consortium will seek financing on capital markets in the
first quarter of 2008, or at the beginning of the second quarter, he
said.
State-controlled Gazprom owns a 51% stake in the Nord Stream
project, which envisages construction of a 1,200-kilometer pipeline
beneath the Baltic Sea to supply 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas
a year to Germany.