Vessel deployed to lay Nord Stream pipe

ZUG, Switzerland, March 23 (UPI) -- Construction of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline starts in Swedish waters with the deployment of a pipelay vessel, the project consortium announced.

"The pipelay vessel Castoro 6 started its journey to the Baltic Sea where construction of the Nord Stream Pipeline will begin shortly," the Nord Stream consortium announced.

The Nord Stream consortium said last week that it won $5.2 billion from 26 banks and guarantees from credit agencies to start building the natural gas pipeline in April.

The project through its dual pipelines will carry 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas each year, which is enough for more than 26 million European households.

The consortium said it would begin laying pipe in Swedish waters of the Baltic Sea about 400 miles from the starting point for the pipeline in Vyborg, Russia.

Russian energy giant Gazprom secured approval from littoral states to Nord Stream. Several countries had complained about potential environmental damage of pipeline construction, which is complicated by World War II munitions on the Baltic Sea floor.

Swiss media reported Nord Stream operators disarmed seven of the 80 mines in the Swedish economic zone, Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti reports. More than 100,000 mines are in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland, the report adds.

The first leg of the pipeline will be finished in 2011.