South and Nord streams to secure EU’s gas stability - Schroeder

The Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines that will transport Russian gas to the European Union are going to protect European consumers from the transit countries’ possible misconduct, Germany’s ex-Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder has said.

Speaking at a business meeting in Russia’s Kaliningrad on Monday, Schroeder, who chairs the Nord Stream shareholders' committee, said that Russia cannot be blamed for recent gas shortages at the EU.

“When we get Russian gas, the problem is not the supplier, but the fact that 80 percent of the pipeline is located in the Ukraine. We should look for independence not from Russia, but from such transit schemes,” he was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.

“Both Nord Stream and South Stream allow to avoid unstable transit countries,” Schroeder added.

As Ukraine missed the deadline to pay for the Russian gas, transit shipment of gas to the EU via Ukraine was halted in January. The shipment did not restart until several weeks later, when Russia’s Gazprom signed a new contract with Ukraine’s Naftogaz.

“The gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine has showed how vital stable gas supplies are for the people and the economy. Europe relies on several energy suppliers, including the most reliable, Russia and Norway,” Schroeder said.

Nord Stream, a 1,220 kilometers’ long pipeline, will pass under the Baltic Sea from Russia’s Vyborg, near St. Petersburg, to Germany’s Greifswald and on to the Netherlands, UK, Denmark and France. The project is expected to be put into operation next year.

The project’s shareholders are Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom (51 percent), Germany’s Wintershall Holding and E.ON Ruhrgas (20 percent each), and the Netherlands’ Gasunie (9 percent). French Gaz de France is negotiating participation in the project.

The 2,000 kilometers’ South Stream, with completion planned by 2015, will pump natural gas from southern Russia under the Black Sea, bringing it via Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, and Greece to terminals in western Austria and southern Italy.