The construction of the Nord Stream 2 subsea pipeline is fully finished, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday, citing a statement by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller at the company's meeting.
The last pipe of the second string of the pipeline was welded on September 6. The section of the gas pipeline running from the German shore was then connected to the section stretching from the Danish waters in a so-called above water tie-in method.
The laying of the first string was completed at the beginning of June.
The Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipeline with a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year runs from the Slavyanskaya compressor station in the Leningrad Region to the Baltic coast of Germany. The total length of the pipeline’s two strings is 2,460 kilometers.
The route, jointly with the existing Nord Stream pipeline, launched in November 2011, will double the annual export capacity to 110 billion cubic metres, around the half of Russia's total gas exports to Europe per year.
Last week, Miller said the first gas through the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline can be delivered to the European market before the end of this year, during the heating season.
Russia’s Gazprom is Europe's largest supplier of natural gas, accounting for more than a third of the region's gas market.
The price of October futures on the Dutch TTF hub, according to the ICE Futures exchange, on Thursday evening rose to $696 per thousand cubic meters.
The main factor contributing to the rise in prices, according to the Interfax, is the low level of gas reserves in underground storage facilities in Europe with limited supply of gas through pipelines and in liquefied form.