Pipeliners

29 April 2009 - The Moscow Times - GDF Suez chief executive Gerard Mestrallet said Monday that the French utility was not in talks to buy a minority stake in the Gazprom-led Nord Stream gas pipeline. Gazprom said last year that GDF expressed interest in taking a minority stake in the pipeline, which is due to start at the end of 2011. Reports have circulated that E.On was willing to sell part of its stake in the project. On April 14, Stanislav Tsygankov, head of Gazprom's external relations department, said the Nord Stream consortium had entered into talks with GDF. GDF's talks with Gazprom are focused on securing additional long-term gas supply contracts, Mestrallet said on the sidelines of a conference in New York. It has held no talks with E.On, he said. "We are just not interested in simply being in the pipe," Mestrellet said. "We are interested if, and only if, at some point we get long-term gas supply contracts." GDF Suez was unsuccessful in becoming the sixth partner for the Nabucco gas pipeline project, which aims to pump Caspian gas to Europe and is viewed as a Nord Stream rival. Russian gas supplies made up 14 percent of GDF's long-term supplies at the end of 2008, a percentage that Mestrallet has said could rise with little risk. "As a supplier of gas, we can say that with the only exception of January 2008, when they stopped supplying through Ukraine, in the past 25 years Gazprom and Russia have been reliable, smart suppliers," Mestrallet said. Last month, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller met with French Ambassador Jean de Gliniasty, who "noted the importance of the successful completion of the Nord Stream project for Europe's energy security," according to a Gazprom statement.