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PARIS -- French utility GDF Suez said Friday that it was in talks with Gazprom over taking part in the Nord Stream gas pipeline project.
GDF Suez chairman and CEO Gerard Mestrallet told reporters that getting a stake in the pipeline was part of its drive to secure and strengthen its gas supplies.
"We have started talks with Gazprom. ... We are ready to take part in this project, which directly links Germany and Russia via the Baltic Sea, under the condition that we secure additional gas supplies," Mestrallet said.
Gazprom said at the end of 2008 that the French energy group had expressed interest in taking a minority stake in the pipeline, which is due to start at the end of 2011.
"We have gone from virtual interest to agreement with our partners, to making practical sense of it," Stanislav Tsygankov, head of Gazprom's external relations department, told reporters in Moscow.
GDF Suez was unsuccessful in becoming the sixth partner for the rival Nabucco gas pipeline, which aims to pump Caspian gas to Europe.
Russian gas comprised 14 percent of the group's long-term supplies at the end of 2008.
GDF Suez plans to buy up to 2.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Nord Stream, which could cost up to 8 billion euros ($10.5 billion) and would run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg, Russia, to Greifswald, Germany.
The Nord Stream consortium, majority-owned by Gazprom, is building the pipeline with Germany's BASF and E.On and has plans to build two parallel gas pipelines of the same length. Dutch state pipeline operator Gasunie has joined the project, taking a 9 percent stake from the German partners.
GDF Suez Begins Talks With Gazprom to Join Nord Stream
13 April 2009
Reuters
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