A sub-sea gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia moved closer to reality on Thursday as the two EU members signed a construction deal on the project intended to ease the region's dependence on Russian gas. Estonia's electricity and gas system operator Elering and Finnish state company Baltic Connector OY contracted the Swiss-based Allseas Group S.A. to build the sub-sea section of Balticconnector pipeline, Elering said in a statement. Planned to be in use by 2020, the pipeline is meant to link Finland to the EU's common energy market while also reducing its dependence on gas imports from powerful neighbour Russia, currently its only gas supplier.
The overall cost of the project is around 300 million euros ($370 million), with 206 million euros provided by the European Union. The Baltic states' heavy dependence on Russian gas was partly reduced in January 2015, when Lithuania broke the Russian monopoly on gas deliveries by launching its first floating LNG terminal in the port of Klaipeda.
Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula prompted the EU to speed up its plans to cut dependence on Russian gas.
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