BABAYEVO (Vologda Region), December 9 (RIA Novosti) - The cost of the underwater segment of the North European Gas Pipeline (NEGP) is estimated at four billion euros, BASF AG chief executive Jurgen Hambrecht said Friday.
He said each leg of the underwater segment of the pipeline would cost two billion euros and investment would total more than 4 billion euros, 700 million more than the total cost of the project was originally estimated.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said the Russian energy giant would finance the overland section of the pipeline, which is designed to increase natural gas supplies to northwestern Russia and St. Petersburg.
Miller said the NEGP, which will connect the Baltic Sea shore near the Russian city of Vyborg with the Greifswald region on the German coast along the Baltic seabed, would pump new volumes of natural gas. The pipeline was designed to create a direct route for natural gas deliveries from Russia to its biggest market in Western Europe, bypassing transit countries (Ukraine and Poland).
"This will be an era of cooperation, new targets and tasks that will be fulfilled," Miller said. "The growing demands of Germany and the European market will be fully satisfied."
Under a basic agreement on building the NEGP that was signed by Gazprom, Germany's BASF AG and E.ON AG September 8, the parties intend to set up a Russian-German joint venture in which a 51% stake will belong to Gazprom, while BASF and E.ON will each hold a 24.5% stake.
