Miller: commercial deliveries via the second leg of the Nord Stream pipeline to begin in October

The commercial gas deliveries via the second leg of the gas pipeline Nord Stream, connecting  Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, will be begin in October, Gazprom’s Head, Alexei Miller, confirmed at the meeting with Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin.

“We have begun the start-up works, in September the filling of the second spring with buffering commercial gas will start, and in October we will begin the commercial deliveries,” – Miller said.

He noted that the construction of the second leg of the gas pipeline was finished nearly two weeks before the scheduled time, so the commercial deliveries will start a little earlier too.

Gazprom’s Head recalled that when the both legs of the gas pipeline rwill reach their projected capacity, 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas will be supplied to Europe via this pipeline and this will allow it to provide 26 million of households with gas. “The role of Russian gas at the European gas market is being decreased,” – Miller stated, he recalled that last year the part of Russian supplies to the European market was increased from 24 to 27%.

According to him, Europe goes on to increase the gas consumption and it will take an additional import of more than 100 billion cubic meters of gas in the next 7-8 years.

The first leg of the Nord Stream with the capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters per year was launched on November 8, 2011. At present, the supplies via this leg are suspended to integrate the two legs of the gas pipeline and, as it’s expected, will be resumed until the end of April.

The shareholders of the project operator – the company Nord Stream AG – are the Russian Gazprom (51%), German Wintershall Holding and E.On Ruhrgas (15.5% each), French GDF Suez and Dutch Gasunie (9% each).

http://www.oilru.com/news/314069/

Translated by Svetlana Kyrzhaly