The financing for Phase I amounts to âÂ3.9 ($US5.3) billion and paves the way for construction of the first line of Nord Stream to start as scheduled in April 2010.
Financing for the project comes from Nord Stream’s shareholders – Gazprom, BASF/Wintershall, E.ON Ruhrgas and N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie – who are providing investment totaling 30 per cent of the total project cost pro rata to their holding in the company, with 70 per cent project financing from the bank market.
Nord Stream AG will be approaching the financial markets for the financing of Phase II in 2010.
The pipelaying of the first line of Nord Stream will start in April 2010 with the Castoro Sei pipelay vessel operating from this date. The Solitaire pipelay vessel will begin to lay pipe on the same line in September 2010. It is planned that construction of the first line will be completed in 2011 with construction on the second parallel line scheduled to begin in 2011 and finishing in 2012.
Meanwhile, twelve shipwrecks have been discovered in a corridor next to the Nord Stream Pipeline route in the Swedish Exclusive Economic Zone. Nord Stream and Swedish authorities have agreed to adapt construction work on the pipeline so that the shipwrecks will be unaffected.