MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti) - The Nord Stream pipeline operator building a gas pipe to Europe along the Baltic Sea will obtain 3.9 billion euros ($5.8 bln) in bank loans by late 2009, managing director Matthias Warnig said Tuesday.
"A meeting with bankers was held in August; we will receive financing worth about 3.9 billion euros by the end of the year and $2.6 billion next year," Warnig said at a forum on the Russian gas industry in Moscow.
Warnig said that 29 banks had given their consent to disburse funds. He also said that the construction of the gas pipeline could begin on April 1, 2010.
The 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) Nord Stream pipeline is designed to pump some 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year from the Russian port of Vyborg to the German port of Greifswald.
Russia's Gazprom holds 51% in the project, Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas and BASF-Wintershall own 20% each, and Dutch gas transportation firm Gasunie has 9%.
Construction of the $12 billion gas pipeline, set to bypass the traditional transit nations of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus, is due to be completed in 2012.
