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Putin presses start button filling Nord Stream with gas

Portovaya is a final destination of the Gryazovets-Vyborg pipeline, where it is connected with Nord Stream

MOSCOW, September 6 (Itar-Tass) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has arrived in Vyborg, the Leningrad region, where he launched the process of filling the first phase of the Nord Stream pipeline with technological gas at Portovaya compressor station.

The prime minister was taken to the station by a helicopter, where in the pipeline’s control room with one click of the mouse he launched an automatic system that started filling the pipeline with technological gas.

Portovaya is a final destination of the Gryazovets-Vyborg pipeline, where it is connected with Nord Stream.

The pipeline’s customer supplies are planned for October. The first phase’s annual gas throughput is 27.5 billion cubic meters.

The second phase is expected to be commissioned at the end of 2012. Over 650 kilometers of the pipeline have already been built.

Nord Stream’s designed capacity is 55 billion cubic meters a year. The 1.224-kilometre pipeline will run along the Baltic seabed from Vyborg to Germany’s Greifswald.

Nord Stream is a principally new route for Russian gas supplies to Europe that will allow to diversify export routes, reduce dependence from transit countries and increase reliability of gas exports to a European consumer. The target markets en route are Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and other EU member-states.

According to the forecasts, the gas import in the EU member-states will surge by approximately 200 billion cubic meters or more than by 50 percent within ten years.

Directly linking the world’s largest gas reserves located in Russia with the European gas pipeline network Nord Stream can satisfy around 25 percent of additional demand for imported gas.