Sweden became the second country to grant final approval for OAO Gazprom’s Nord Stream natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, ending almost two years of Swedish opposition and wrangling over the energy project.

The country approved the 506-kilometre (314-mile) Swedish stretch of the 1220-kilometre link that will pump gas from Russia to Germany, Zug, Switzerland-based Nord Stream and the government in Stockholm said today.

Opposition to the project was widespread in Sweden, where the public, politicians, media and fishermen questioned its impact on fish breeding grounds and the environmental risks of laying pipes on a seabed littered with mines and chemical weapons dumped during two world wars.

Russia’s motives behind the project were also questioned, including concerns that pipeline facilities may be used for espionage.

“The government has made tough demands to secure that the sensitive environment in the Baltic Sea isn’t jeopardised,” Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said in a Bloomberg report.

Denmark gave permission on 20 October and Germany, Russia and Finland also have to give a go-ahead for the project on which construction is planned to start early next year. The venture, which also includes BASF’s Wintershall Holding and EON Ruhrgas, seeks to transport 55 billion cubic metres of gas per year when completed in 2012 and is designed to ease supplies from Russia to Western Europe by avoiding Ukraine.

“Nord Stream is aiming to obtain all required permits by the end of 2009,” the company said today.

Sweden got the formal application in December 2007 and two months later requested more information about the environmental impact and asked the company to evaluate alternative routes.

Nord Stream withdrew plans for a maintenance platform off the coast of the island of Gotland amid concern over Russian presence in Swedish territory.

“The starting point for the government’s decision is that all states has a right to put pipes in international waters and on a coastal state’s continental shelf,” Sweden said.

“The government’s room for maneuver has therefore been significantly more limited than it’s in evaluations of applications regarding Swedish territorial waters or projects in Sweden.”

Nord Stream today cleared the second of three steps in the Finnish permitting process for the gas pipelines after that country’s government said the company may use its economic zone in the Baltic Sea.

The venture requires a separate permit in Finland in order to begin construction.