"Of the 880 km of the Gryazovets-Slavyanskaya gas pipeline, we have only 40 km left for welding and assembly work," he said.

About 40 km are still to be built to complete the Russian part of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gazprom Vitaly Markelov told at a press conference.

As part of the construction of the pipeline for deliveries to Nord Stream 2, it was planned to lay two strings of the main gas pipeline with the diameter of 1,400 mm at the section "km 538 - km 852.7" and four strings with the diameter of 800 mm in the section "km 852.7 - km 859.5 "(from the Slavyanskaya compressor station to the coastline).

The Nord Stream 2 project envisages the construction of two lines of a gas pipeline with total capacity of 55 bln cubic meters of gas per year, running from Russia to Europe across the Baltic Sea. The 9.5 bln euro ($11 bln) project is expected to start operations before late 2019.

Gazprom’s European partners in the project are Wintershall, Uniper, OMV, Engie and Royal Dutch Shell. They are to finance 50% of the project.