Vladislav Belov, President of the Center for German Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the prospective agreement was about cooperation between two energy giants - Russia's Gazprom and Germany's BASF. He said the project's costs were estimated at 2 billion to 5 billion euros and that it would give Gazprom access to Western European markets and enable BASF to take part in the development of Russia's Yuznorusskoye natural gas deposit.
Gazprom holds a 51% stake in the North European Pipeline consortium, while the remaining 49% is shared by BASF and other German companies, Belov said.
The project is to be launched in the fall of 2005 and completed in 2010. It will link Russia and Germany with a trans-Baltic pipeline, whose annual capacity is projected at 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
