The Nord Stream pipeline, a $10.5-billion project that is expected to come online in 2010, will connect Russia's Portovaya bay on the Gulf of Finland, near St. Petersburg, to Germany's Greifswald via the Baltic seabed.
Finland's Environment Ministry published the conclusions of an assessment of project documentation, which say the NEGP route and the pipeline's impact on the environment should be analyzed more thoroughly.
The project to build the pipeline, stretching over 1,200 kilometer (750 miles), is designed to minimize transit risks associated with Russian gas supplies to Western Europe.
The Russian energy giant Gazprom-led Nord Stream project includes two parallel legs measuring 750 miles each. The first leg of the pipeline, with annual capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters, is set to come online in 2010, and the second will double capacity, to 55 billion cubic meters.
German companies BASF and E.ON are Gazprom's partners in the project to supply Western Europe with gas across the floor of the Baltic Sea.
