The two German partners in the Nord Stream company, BASF/Wintershall and E.ON Ruhrgas, are both willing to lower their shares in the project in order to include the French gas major Gaz de France.

Offshore wind power can become Norway’s new energy and industrial future, the country’s Minister of Petroleum and Energy said when presenting a new bill on alternative energy generation at sea. –We are writing history, he underlined.

The ENPI CPC programmes – the key financial instruments for EU-Russia cross-border projects – will get Russian funding, a representative of the Ministry of Regional Development indicate.

Russia spends an estimated 3,5 times more energy than the European average. Now, President Dmitry Medvedev calls for the implementation of major energy saving measures and alternative energy generation.

Researchers who used historical meteorological data along with other sources, including a natural climate “archive”, to study the evolution of the ice sheet that is situated between Greenland and the European island archipelago Svalbard, have come to the conclusion that the Arctic ice in this area is currently at the lowest level seen in the past 800 years. The results and details of the study appear in the latest issue of Climate Dynamics.

Thousands of young birds risk dying when they leave their nests from the cliffs above “Petrozavodsk”, the Russian vessel that ran aground by the coast of the Bear Island nearly two months ago. The ship is leaking diesel oil into the ocean under the nesting cliff.

The Finnish Uusimaa Regional Environment Centre in a statement concludes that the Nord Stream project poses no serious environmental threat to Finland and that the planning of the 1200 km long underwater Baltic pipeline project can proceed.

Leading the EU through the financial and economic crisis, dealing with the problem of increasing unemployment and continuing the work to tackle climate change are the top priorities for the EU chairmanship period which started July 1.

Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will take part in the International Economic Forum in Murmansk in October.

Launch of the first semisubmersible drilling rig for the Shtokman gas field will take place at the Vyborg Shipyard on July 7.