Gazprom Discusses Nord Stream's Expansion

Gazprom's Alexey Miller met Matthias Warnig, Managing Director of Nord Stream A, to discuss the possibility of beefing up the Nord Stream gas transmission system via the Baltic Sea. That would imply constructing one or two additional strings.

'Gazprom reviewed the results of the feasibility study performed by the Nord Stream AG operating company as well as the conclusions made during the consultations with public authorities, non-profit organizations and other stakeholders from the Baltic Sea region,' reads a note uploaded on Gazprom's website on Friday.

Miller also met Algirdas Butkevicius, Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania, to discuss bilateral cooperation in energy sector. According to a press release, the parties discussed 'the reliability of Russian natural gas transit across Lithuania.'

The new strings would substitute the Yamal II project, which have been shelved after the controversy that the project sparked in Poland. 

Mikolaj Budzanowski, shale gas enthusiast and staunch supporter of gas diversification was fired in April, in connection with the Gazprom memorandum confusion. The document was signed in St. Petersburg, by the CEO of Gazprom Alexey Miller and on behalf of EuRoPol Gaz, by Miroslaw Dobrut, who is also VP of PGNiG. Under the agreement, both sides would have exchanged information and cooperated in order to prepare a feasibility study of a 15bcm/year connection from Belarus via Poland to Slovakia.

The pipeline, called Yamal 2 or - less formally - “Pyeremychka”, would have bypassed Ukraine. The feasibility study, due to be completed by September 2013, was never carried out.