the pipeline project was proposed in 1978 as an export pipeline from yamburg gas field, but was later changed to the pipeline from urengoy field, which was already in use. in july 1981, a consortium of german banks, led by deutsche bank, and the aka ausfuhrkredit gmbh agreed to provide 3.4 billion deutsche mark in credits for the compressor stations. later finance agreements were negotiated with a group of french banks and the japan export-import bank (jexim). in 1981-1982, contracts were signed with compressors and pipes suppliers creusot-loire, john brown engineering, nuovo pignone, aeg-telefunken, mannesmann, dresser industries, and japan steel works. pipe-layers were bought from caterpillar inc. and komatsu.