Around 100 milion euros was spent on an environmental impact survey on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, a Russian first deputy prime minister said on Wednesday.
"[Environmental] assessment was conducted on an area of over 40,000 square kilometers to find the safest possible route for the gas pipeline," Viktor Zubkov said.
He said these efforts had been praised by the project's partner countries, who have given permission for the pipeline to pass through their territorial waters.
Nord Stream will eventually pump 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year to western Europe, bypassing traditional transit countries such as Ukraine and Belarus blamed for previous disruptions in gas supplies to the region.
Two pipelines, each with a capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters a year, will run from the Russian city of Vyborg near the Finnish border to the German port of Greifswald.
Nord Stream AG has changed the originally proposed route of the pipeline to ease environmental concerns from the Baltic nations. The final route goes through the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany, avoiding Poland and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
VILNIUS, June 2 (RIA Novosti)
