Gazprom CEO Miller confirms deliveries via Nord Stream 2 could begin in 2021 heating season

MOSCOW. Sept 2 (Interfax) - Gazprom could launch the first deliveries of gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline at the beginning of the 2021 heating season, Alexei Miller, the company's CEO and management board chairman, said on a conference call marking Oil and Gas Industry Workers Day.

"We could supply the first gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to the European market even prior to the end of this year, this heating season," Miller said. "All the necessary capacities have been created on the Russian side: production capacities on Yamal and gas transmission capacities in the northern gas transport corridor," the Gazprom chief said.

"It is well known that the route from Yamal through the Baltic Sea to Europe is the shortest and the most cost-effective for consumers. And very, very importantly, the most environmentally friendly. The carbon footprint is 5.6 times lower than that of the corridor that goes through Ukraine," he said.

"I think pumping of gas via Nord Stream 2 will start this year," Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov also told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum.

The Nord Stream 2 offshore pipeline with annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas runs from the Slavyanskaya compressor station in the Kingisepp districts of the Leningrad Region to the Baltic Sea coast of Germany. The total length of the gas pipeline's two strings is 2,460 kilometers. The first string was completed in early June.