Swedish, Finnish consent to Nord Stream is great victory-analysts.

MOSCOW, November 7 (By Itar-Tass)- World Service writer Lyudmila
Alexandrova) -- Russian analysts have described as a great victory for
Russia in implementing one of the most ambitious energy projects the
consent Sweden and Finland have given to laying the Nord Stream gas
pipeline in their economic zones.

The future of the project looks settled, because it is still to be
approved only by the initiators - Russia and Germany - and this will be
sheer formality. Moscow hopes that very soon it will be able to sell gas
to Europe without any risk of gas conflicts with transiters.
In fact, this means that the first line of the gas carrier will begin
to be laid in the spring of 2010, as expected, go operational in 2011. The
second line will be in place in 2012. The pipeline will link Vyborg with
Germany's Greifswald.
The Swedish government on Thursday issued its permission to the Nord
Stream consortium to lay two parallel gas pipes through its economic zone
in the Baltic Sea.
"I would like to thank the Swedish counterparts, the Swedish
government, for the decision made," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at
a meeting of the Cabinet's presidium.
The Swedish authorities have put forward a number of conditions,
though. All construction work must be paused for the period of codfish
spawning, from May to October, which may affect the project's
implementation dates.
Finland on Thursday coordinated the procedure of issuing a similar
permission, too. Now the country's ecological agency is to issue two more
permissions, including one for disposing of the old-time ammunition that
may be found on the Baltic Sea's bed in Finland's exclusive economic zone.
The Swedish and Finnish economic zones will host 506 kilometers and
374 kilometers of the 1,223-kilometer pipeline respectively.
A week earlier Denmark was the first to have issued one of the five
permissions necessary for Nord Stream.
The former Soviet republics and Poland had repeatedly urged their
Scandinavian neighbors to block the project.
In the meantime, the initiators - Russia and Germany - have had to
delay formalization procedures due to exclusively technical reasons and
the documents are to be obtained in December.
When completed, Nord Stream will connect Russia and Germany across the
Baltic Sea. The first line with a throughput of 27.5 billion cubic meters
a year is to be finalized at the end of 2011, and its identical twin, in
2012. The project's value is estimated at 7.4 billion dollars. Two gas
fields in Russia - Yuzhno-Russkoye and Shtokman - will constitute its
reserve base.
A 51-percent stake in Nord Stream belongs to Gazprom, two equal 20-
percent stakes, to Germany's E.ON and BASF, and nine percent, to the
Netherlands' Gasunie. It is expected that the shares of German partners
will be reduced to 15.5 percent soon, when France's GdF SUEZ joins in.
Sweden has remained one of the firmest opponents of Nord Stream for
the past four years, says the daily Kommersant. At its demand the project'
s operator dropped the idea of building a compressor facility near Swedish
shores. The underwater pipeline will have no pumps supporting the pressure
of gas.
The director of the National Energy Security Fund, Konstantin Simonov,
sees Sweden's decision as a rather unexpected one.
"For several years Stockholm stuck to a very firm position and
demanded holding talks literally "with each single fish" in the Baltic
Sea," the daily quotes Simonov as saying. "The Swedes' gains from this
project remain very unclear. The Finns will enjoy a zero export tax on
timber for a couple of years, and Denmark will have Moscow's support for
its initiatives at the UN conference on the Kyoto Protocol issue, due in
Copenhagen in December. What such country as Sweden, which consumes almost
no gas, will get in exchange is anyone's guess."
Sweden's favorable decision is particularly important for Nord
Stream," says the daily Gazeta. "The future of that project depends
heavily on that country, which was strongly against from the outset and
put forward a number of extra demands in the sphere of ecology."
"It is hard to say which of the project's participants is more
interested in its success," Gazeta quotes the general director of the
Information and Analytical Center for Political Process Studies in the
Post-Soviet Space at the Moscow State University, Alexei Vlasov, as
saying. "In principle this idea is crucial to both Europe and to us.
Therefore, I believe that there was not just plain bargaining with the
Scandinavian countries over their consent, but a rather solid basis for
the understanding that economically Europe will receive tangible gains."
Indeed, Europe's demand for stable energy supply is great, the expert
said. And Nord Stream is a solution to many problems, such as those
related with gas transit through Ukraine.
"It is equally important to both Russia and to Europe," says the
general director of the Metaprocess closed joint stock company, Kirill
Lyats.
"Europe needs it, because it is an extra source of gas that does not
depend on transit through Ukraine or Belarus. And Russia needs it because
we gain access to new markets in the North of Europe and create a more
stable transport route for gas, which is of particular importance as new
fields (in the first place, Bovanenkovskoye) are to go on stream."

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