The process of laying the South Stream and Nord Stream pipelines proceeds as scheduled, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at the meeting with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller on Friday.

“In general, everything proceeds as scheduled. Recently I saw how the work on the Nord Stream proceeds, everything is good there and makes progress,” Putin said.

He noted that some large European companies that were not shareholders of South Stream are also interested in the project.

“If this happens and they join the project, it will really become international and pan-European. The project brings together Italian and French companies and now German companies also show interest,” Putin said.

Miller said in turn the engineering and reconnaissance exploration as well as the feasibility study of the offshore section had been completed.

“The feasibility studies of the pipeline’s construction through transit countries will be completed within the upcoming several months,” he said.

“We see new participants, our traditional partners, in particular German companies, showing interest in the project,” he said adding that Romania’s interest in South Stream is also growing.

“Recently a group of Gazprom experts visited the country and studied additional variants for laying the pipeline through the Romanian territory,” Miller said.

“In general, the work one the project strictly complies with the schedule. We will be ready to begin the construction in 2013 and pump gas through South Stream for our consumers in late 2015,” he said.