Nord Stream's Special Day Arrives

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will join German chancellor Angela Merkel, French prime minister Francois Fillon and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte today in the town of Lubmin in the north of Germany.

The leaders will gather to inaugurate the first of twin 1,224-kilometer gas pipelines of the Nord Stream gas project.

The pipeline will deliver Russian gas via the Baltic Sea to Germany, bypassing key transit countries Ukraine and Belarus; two nations with which Russia has had flare-ups that have resulted in gas disruptions to its European clients.

Russia provides up to 30 percent of the gas consumed in Europe.

When fully operational in late 2012, Nord Stream will have the capacity to transport 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually.

Russia has placed great importance on the new link providing energy security for Europe and the involvement of its western based consortium partners; German utilities BASF (through its Wintershall subsidiary) and E.ON with 15.5 per cent each, Dutch gas infrastructure company Nederlandse Gasunie, and France’s GDF SUEZ, with 9 per cent each.

Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, holds a 51 per cent stake.

“Nord Stream is unconditionally a most important energy project, which we hope will not only satisfy growing demands of our partners from the European Union, but will also give an impetus to energy cooperation on the whole,” said Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to the Russian president.

“This is a real manifestation of major job done to diversify gas deliveries to EU countries,” he said. “The ceremony to launch the Nord Stream gas pipeline, its launch – is a result of years-long and very difficult from the economic point of view technological work, in which the Russian side permanently felt pragmatic and deep interest of our leading partners in the European Union, and first of all Germany,” Prikhodko stressed.