Azerbaijan, Baku, 7 April / Trend corr A. Badalova/ Russia's largest gas monopoly Gazprom has raised the cost of North Stream gas pipeline project from €6bln to €7.4bln. One third of the cost will be financed through the project's shareholders and 70% will be borrowed.
The shareholders to the project are Gazprom (51%), Germany's Wintershall Holding and E.ON Ruhrgas (each owns 20%) and Dutch Gasunie (9%).
According to Timur Khayrullin, the oil analyst of Antanta Capital investment company, the rise in cost of North Stream is not critical for the shareholders.
He said Gazprom may reduce the payback period of the North Stream by increasing the tariffs for transportation of gas.
"The gas transportation tariffs may be increased. When implementation of the project was started, the gas prices were two times lower the recent prices. Therefore, Gazprom can afford to increase the expenditures for gas transportation via the North Stream which will enable shortening the payback period," Khayrullin told Trend on 7 April.
The target markets for gas supply via the North Stream is Germany, UK, Netherlands, France, Denmark and other countries.
North Stream will connect the Baltic shore of Russia with Baltic shore of Germany. The length of the pipeline will make up some 1,200km. The first branch of North Stream, with the carrying capacity of 27.5bln cu m per year, will be put into operation by 2010. Construction of the second branch, to be completed by 2012, will increase its carrying capacity to 55bln cu m.
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