Putin: Russia Drops South Stream, Plans New Turkey Link

President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has stated that they won’t pursue the South Stream pipeline project for gas from the Black Sea to Europe.

Durining his latest visit to Turkey Russia’s president stated: “Taking into account the European Commission’s position, which is not conducive to implementing this project, taking into account the fact that we have only recently received permission from relevant authorities in the Netherlands – granted, it was a positive decision, and taking into account that we still have not received permission from Bulgaria, we feel Russia cannot continue implementing this project under the existing circumstances. I mean that we now need to start the construction of this pipeline in the Black Sea, but we cannot do that until we have Bulgaria’s permission.”

I think it’s clear to everyone that it would be ridiculous to start the construction in the sea, reach the Bulgarian shore and stop. So we are forced to reconsider our participation in this project.

Putin also pointed out Russia’s readiness to satisfy Turkey’s growing demand for gas, by not only expanding the Blue Stream pipeline, but also building another pipeline system.

This statement proved right yesterday, after Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Mehmet Konuk, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation signed a Memorandum of Understanding on constructing an offshore gas pipeline across the Black Sea towards Turkey.

According to Gazprom, The new gas pipeline will have a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, with 14 billion cubic meters slated for Turkish consumers and nearly 50 billion cubic meters conveyed to the border between Turkey and Greece, where a delivery point will be arranged.

However, Saipem states that it has not received any formal notice of termination of the contract from the client, South Stream Transport BV, and therefore continues to progress with its operations.

Subsea World News Staff