Nord Stream expects to get all permits for pipeline by end of 2009
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The multinational company Nord Stream, which is hoping to build the pipeline in the Baltic, expects to get to start laying the pipe into the sea in April next year.
This should happen, if all of the permits that are needed for the project are granted before the end of the year.
At least Bernhard Reutersberg, CEO of the German company Eon Ruhrgas, believes that this will take place.
Reutersberg said in an interview with Reuters during an international natural gas conference in Buenos Aires that the first permit will come this month, and that the last would arrive before the end of the year.
Permits are needed from Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. “Deeper discussions are to be held with Sweden and Finland”, Reutersberg said.
He added that Nord Stream has kept to its schedule, which aims at launching the pipeline into use by the end of 2011. The pipeline is expected to deliver up to 55 million cubic metres of gas a year.
The recession has claerly reduced demand for natural gas in Europe. Reutersberg expects that next year there will be slight growth, but that it will take several years before demand recovers to the level where it was before the recession.
Eon Ruhrgas has a 20 per cent stake in Nord Stream.
The Russian company Gazprom, which will supply the gas itself, has a 51 per cent holding. The German Wintershall Holding has a 20 per cent stake, and the Dutch Nederlandse Gasunie has nine per cent of Nord Stream’s shares.
More on this subject:
 Parliament debates problems of gas pipeline
Helsingin Sanomat
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