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Nord Stream 2 construction to be over by yearend — Russian deputy PM

The project will be commissioned, Alexander Novak said

MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will be finished by the yearend and the pipeline will be put into operation, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday.

"The current works will be finished by the yearend and the project will be commissioned," he said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.

Nord Stream 2 is an international project for the construction of a gas pipeline that will run across the bottom of the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast to Germany bypassing transit states, such as Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and other Eastern European and Baltic countries.

The new 1,230-kilometer pipeline, basically following the same route as Nord Stream, traverses the economic zones and territorial water of five countries, namely Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday that the construction of one Nord Stream 2 line was over and the second one would be completed in 1.5-2 months.

CEO of Austria’s OMV, Rainer Seele, told TASS on the sidelines of the SPIEF that about 50 km of the second branch of Nord Stream 2 remained to be laid.

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