OREANDA-NEWS. The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company's Management Committee and Rainer Seele, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of Wintershall Holding.

The parties addressed the main issues of the bilateral cooperation, paying special attention to Russian natural gas supply to Europe. It was pointed out that repeatedly occurring high risks of gas transit via Ukraine called for creating Russian gas supply alternatives.

In this regard, the meeting highlighted the key role of the existing Nord Stream gas pipeline as well as the need to promptly resolve the issue of using OPAL's full transit capacity by the Russian supplier.

Nord Stream is a gas pipeline with the annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas, exporting Russian natural gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea bypassing transit countries. The project is operated by the Nord Stream joint venture (Gazprom owns a 51 per cent stake, Wintershall Holding and E.ON Global Commodities – 15.5 per cent each, Gasunie and GDF Suez – 9 per cent each).

The OPAL and NEL gas pipelines connect Nord Stream with the European gas system. The OPAL gas pipeline is operated by OPAL Gastransport (Gazprom owns a 49.98 stake and Wintershall Holding – 50.02 per cent).

A wholly-owned subsidiary of BASF, Wintershall Holding has been focused on oil and gas exploration and production for over 80 years.