“In regard to Nord Stream, all of the agreements between the stockholders see its launch at the end of 2019 and the business plan that needs to be approved in January of next year also shows the realization of the project in that timeframe,” Medvedev said.
In June, Gazprom announced plans to build two additional branches of the Nord Stream gas pipeline 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).
Last week, the Russian energy company signed a shareholder agreement on the pipeline extension with international energy companies BASF, E.ON, Engie, OMV and Shell.
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 from the Russian shores through the Baltic Sea to the coast of Germany.
