Russ Oil-Gas

11 September 2007 - Upstream OnLine - Plans for the $7 billion Nord Stream gas pipeline is on schedule, consortium chief former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said today. Schroeder is the supervisory chief of the German-Russian consortium building the subsea pipeline, which includes Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom, Germany's E.ON and chemicals group BASF's oil and gas arm, Wintershall. The project still faces several hurdles but the operators are aiming for construction to start next year and for the first gas to be shipped to Germany's Baltic Sea coast in 2010. "We're in line with our plan, it's going ahead as envisaged," he told Reuters in response to a question during an energy conference today. Schroeder brushed aside concern about the possible dominance of the European gas market by Russia. Trade and investment between the two have been booming but diplomatic relations have soured over the past year. "This dominance talk is nonsense," he said, adding the pipeline would at best deliver 55 billion cubic metres of gas, a tenth of what Europe needed. Russia has shown that it is willing to cut energy supplies to force neighbouring countries to accept its price demands. Poland, a new European Union member, has put pressure on the bloc to protect its interests. It fears Russia might use the new link to divert gas away from transit pipelines across Polish soil, potentially undermining the security of its gas supplies. Schroeder attacked Poland's stance, saying Warsaw had to show solidarity with Nord Stream, which was a pan-European project. "Poland is trying to make the EU a hostage of a national, anti-German and anti-Russian policy," Reuters quoted Schroeder sa saying. "The EU has to reject one single country acting like that," he said. Schroeder also defended Russia's record as a supplier of gas to Europe for over 40 years and said the discussion about Europe's over-reliance on the country was mirrored by Russia sending 73% of its gas to Europe. "It's a two-way street," he said.