E.ON Ruhrgas AG's chief executive Bernhard Reutersberg Wednesday said the current diplomatic rift between Europe and Russia over the conflict in Georgia hasn't hit the company's business in Russia but changed the "climate" in which business is done.
"My impression so far is that the Russians try to separate politics from economics," Reutersberg told reporters on the sidelines of Norway's biennial Offshore Northern Seas conference for the energy sector, in the country's oil capital of Stavanger.
"So far there hasn't been any direct impact on our business, but the climate is changing," Reutersberg added.
As an example he singled out the Nordstream gas pipeline project, in which the unit of E.ON AG (EOAN.XE) owns a 20% stake.
Reutersberg said Baltic states could grow increasingly skeptical of the pipeline project following the conflict in the Caucasus.
The planned pipeline would carry gas from the Russian port of Vyborg to the northern German port of Greifswald, bypassing current land routes through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. The plan has provoked strong opposition in Poland, which receives transit fees from Russian gas crossing its territory. Other countries, including Estonia, Sweden and Finland, have voiced objections to the pipeline on environmental grounds.
Nord Stream AG is a consortium consisting of OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS), E.ON Ruhrgas and BASF SE (BAS.XE) unit Wintershall Holding AG and Dutch gas company Nederlandse Gasunie NV. Gazprom is leading the consortium, owning a 51% stake.