Gas from Russia

Gazprom, BASF and E.ON have formed a joint venture to construct a gas pipeline over 1,200 km long that will link Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea.

The German-Russian venture will be called the North European Gas Pipeline Company (NEGP) - Gazprom will own 51% of the company while BASF and E.ON will each own 24.5 %.

The NEGP will run from Vyborg on Russia's Baltic coast to Germany's Baltic coast; the Greifswald region has provisionally earmarked as landfall.

Once built, E.ON and BASF will procure gas via the NEGP, to which the pipeline systems of WINGAS and E.ON Ruhrgas in Germany will be linked.

The pipeline itself is planned to be commissioned in 2010, initially consisting of a single pipeline with an annual transmission capacity of approx. 27.5 billion cubic metres. The project envisages laying a second pipeline and doubling the transmission capacity to approx. 55 billion cubic metres per annum.

The total investment for the twin-pipeline project exceeds 4 billion Euros.