Pipeliners

MOSCOW, February 7 (RIA Novosti) - The Amber gas pipeline project proposed by Poland is not an alternative to Nord Stream, a Russian presidential aide said on Thursday. The Amber project envisions building a gas pipeline to Europe via Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Poland says the project could be more attractive than the Nord Stream gas pipeline currently being built under the Baltic Sea to Germany. "From an economic point of view, the project is very complicated and much more costly than Nord Stream, and the number of transit countries would increase. It would be neither very profitable nor acceptable to us," Sergei Prikhodko said. Prikhodko added that large amounts of funds have already been spent on the Nord Stream project. The Nord Stream gas pipeline is being developed by Russia's state-controlled gas giant Gazprom and Germany's E.ON and BASF at an estimated cost of $12 billion.