Pipeliners

07 January 2008 - Upstream staff The Nord Stream consortium, which is building a subsea gas pipeline from Russia to Western Europe, said today that project costs look likely to exceed €5 billion ($7.35 billion), adding that it will release new cost figures in the coming months. Nord Stream director Dirk von Ameln repeated that plans still call for gas shipments to start at the beginning of 2011. "It is quite clear that the cost will be higher than earlier calculated," he told Reuters. "We will come up with new figures in, let's say, March." Switzerland-based Nord Stream, majority owned by Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom , plans to build a 1200 kilometre pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Work is due to begin in 2009 and be completed in 2010. The Nord Stream consortium, apart form Gazprom, which owns 51%, involves German players BASF and E.ON, with 20% each, and Dutch outfit Gasunie with 9%.