Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin believes that the South Stream pipeline, which would transport Russian gas to Europe via the Black Sea, could be ready earlier than planned, Interfax reported on 22 October. Putin met in St Petersburg with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose country would be one of the end points for the supply line.
Putin said that he saw “positive movement” from the Turkish government on work for the pipeline, meaning that the project could be delivered earlier than the scheduled 2013 date.
Earlier last week Russia, Turkey and Italy agreed upon a deal to carry out geological exploration work in the Black Sea. Turkish President Abdullah Gül had a telephone conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on October 19. “In accordance with the earlier understandings reached at the top and high levels, the Turkish government has made all the necessary decisions to issue permissions for geological exploration in Turkey’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea for the sake of the South Stream gas pipeline project,” Gül told Medvedev. In response to Gül, Medvedev said the decision will facilitate the further strengthening of the strategic relations between Russia and Turkey.
Russia’s Kommersant daily reported that Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz informed Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Ivanovich Sechin of Turkey’s decision “unofficially” in Milan on October 19, prior to the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline by Turkey, Russia and Italy.
On August 6, Russia and Turkey signed agreements on cooperation in the gas sphere, envisioning in particular Turkish consent for the construction of the South Stream pipeline, in its territorial waters.
The South Stream gas project is to be built by a joint venture between Russia’s Gazprom and Italy’s ENI. The €25 billion ($36.5 billion), 900-kilometre-long undersea section of the pipeline will run from the gas compressor facility at Beregovaya, on Russia’s Black Sea coast, near Arkhipo-Osipovka, towards the city of Burgas, in Bulgaria. The sea’s maximum depth on this route is 2,000 metres. South Stream is designed to annually pump 31 billion cubic metres of Central Asian and Russian gas. The pipeline’s capacity is expected to be eventually increased to 63 billion cubic metres.
Russia, which supplies more than a quarter of the European Union’s gas, is in a race to build South Stream under the Black Sea bypassing Ukraine ahead of the EU-supported Nabucco pipeline which is meant to reduce reliance on Russia by securing gas from the Caspian. Payment disputes between Russia and Ukraine, through which much of Russian gas destined for Europe flows, have blocked gas shipments to Europe in the past, making some question Russian reliability.
Bypassing Ukraine with the South Stream pipeline should resolve that problem, argue Russian officials. Nonetheless, some European leaders would like an alternate, worrying that they are too dependent on Russia, which provides the bulk of gas for European consumption.