Lithuania's Klaipedos Juru Kroviniu Kompanija (Klaipeda Stevedoring Company, or Klasco) is close to signing a contract to load onto ships crushed granite for the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which is being built under the Baltic Sea, the Verslo Zinios business daily reported on Tuesday.
The company has signed a letter of intent on 1 million to 1.5 million tons of crushed granite with a Dutch company involved in the Nord Stream construction project, it wrote.
"Klasco wants to have cargo. I would not say that we offered some special terms and were chosen because of that. Natural conditions are similar in Lithuania and Latvia. Perhaps we knew which door in Brussels or Amsterdam to knock at," the paper quoted Achemos Grupe President Bronislovas Lubys as saying.
Crushed granite would be carried by ships from Norway to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda and then shipped on to a segment of the sea, writes BNS.
Achemos Grupe, one of Lithuania's biggest business conglomerates, owns the stevedoring company.