MOSCOW, April 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's energy giant said Tuesday that $6 billion in investments in the overland section of the North European Gas Pipeline would not only go toward the construction of a 900-km pipe but also the large-scale development of the gas transit system in Russia's northwest.
"The construction of the NEGP overland section allows for resolving not only current but also strategic tasks on the development of the country's gas transportation system, including gasification projects in the Vologda and Leningrad Regions and St. Petersburg," Gazprom said in a press release.
Deputy Board Chairman Alexander Medvedev said earlier he estimated the construction cost of the North European Gas Pipeline, connecting Russia and Germany along the Baltic seabed, at $10.5 billion.
He said the overland section of the pipeline would cost roughly $6 billion, and the underwater part, $4.5 billion.
The construction plan includes two parallel gas pipeline legs, each 750 miles long. The first stage will see construction of one leg with a capacity of 27.5 billion cu m, and the second phase will double the NEGP's capacity to 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.
The NEGP is 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.
