Pipeliners

7th November, 2007 - Big News Network - An agreement between Dutch gas company Gasunie and Russian monopoly Gazprom will see a controversial pipeline being built beneath the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany. The agreement gives Gasunie a nine percent stake in the Nord Stream consortium, which is planning a 1,200-kilometre undersea pipeline from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald in Germany. Gazprom controls 51 percent of the pipeline, which it plans to use to supply gas to western Europe when it is completed in 2010. The project has run into objections from Sweden and Estonia on environmental concerns. Poland, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas, objects to the fact that it is being bypassed by the new pipeline.