GDF Suez to join Nord Stream very soon

BERLIN, May 19 (UPI) -- GDF Suez will join the Nord Stream pipeline project before the end of the summer, a senior Gazprom official said Tuesday in Berlin.

The swift entry of the company is supported by all consortium partners, Alexander Medvedev, Gazprom's deputy chief, said Tuesday at a news conference on the sidelines of a German-Russian gas conference in Berlin.

The Nord Stream consortium is building a natural gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea. Gazprom holds a 51 percent stake in the project, Germany's Wintershall and E.ON Ruhrgas own 20 percent each, with the remainder held by Dutch Gasunie. GDF Suez will likely acquire a stake from the German companies, observers on the sidelines of the conference said.

Nord Stream has been mentioned by the European Commission as a priority energy project but has run into opposition from individual European states, including Poland and the Baltic countries. Moreover, environmental concerns have delayed the permitting process.

Current talks on getting permits for Nord Stream from transit and riparian nations are "going well," a senior official involved in the project said.

"We want to have all permits by the end of the year," said Rainer Seele, the head of Wingas, a large German gas distributing company involved in the project. "I am optimistic that we can start construction of the pipeline in the first half of 2010."

Seele is due to succeed Reinier Zwitserloot as the head of Wintershall later this year. His current company, Wingas, is a joint venture of Wintershall and Gazprom.