“We are currently readying the business plan and simultaneously the tenders on a number of key positions such as the pipelines, which will both be confirmed in January,” Medvedev said during a press conference.
In June, Gazprom announced plans to build two additional branches of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, running from Russia to Germany, in a joint project with E.ON, Shell and OMV, with an estimated cost of 9.9 billion euro (over $11 billion).
On Wednesday, Gazprom and its partner companies signed a shareholders agreement on the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline at the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia's Vladivostok.
The Nord Stream-2 project, which plans to use the original Nord Stream pipeline for 86-percent of the route before branching off, could provide up to 55 billion cubic meters of direct gas supplies to European customers annually.