Nice and icy: a Russian fisherman sits inside a plastic tent to protect himself from cold winds blowing in from the Baltic Sea
Gazprom sets Baltic link date
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom will decide by 1 April next year whether to add a new partner to its project to build a gas export pipeline under the Baltic Sea to Germany, an executive said today.
Deputy chief executive Aleksandr Medvedev said players including British supermajor BP, Dutch gas outfit Gasunie, France's Gaz de France and British pipeline company Transco have expressed interest in the project.
"We will pick a partner who has something we don't have," Medvedev told Reuters.
"We have just about everything already," he added.
The pipeline plan, which could see Gazprom pump up to 55 billion cubic metres a year to Germany and onwards to Europe from the middle of next decade, already involves German companies E.on and BASF.
Medvedev said Gazprom would retain its 51% stake in the project, which means that its current partners would probably have to give up some of their own equity if the consortium was to offer a share ownership to a potential new member.
He said Gazprom and its existing partners signed the necessary papers yesterday to set up a joint venture to build the pipeline and they planned to register the new company in Switzerland on 9 December.
The pipeline will run 917 kilometres across Russian territory from central Russia to Vyborg on the Baltic coast, where the gas will start the second leg of its journey, via a 1200 kilometre subsea line to Greifswald in northern Germany.
Gazprom is also considering building a branch pipeline to supply Sweden, it said in a prospectus issued to potential creditors earlier this week.