Gazprom and Turkey's gas company Botas have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the construction of an offshore gas pipeline across the Black Sea towards Turkey, that would replace the South Stream gas pipeline project. The new gas pipeline would have the same capacity as the South Stream project (63 bcm/year, including 14 bcm/year reserved for Turkey). It would start at the Russkaya compressor station currently under construction in the Krasnodar Territory (Russia) and could end at Samsun (current terminal point of the Blue Stream gas pipeline) or at another port of the Black Sea. Up to 49 bcm/year could be transported to the border between Turkey and Greece, where a delivery point will be arranged, to be later exported to European markets.
The South Stream gas pipeline project was approved in 2012 and construction started in Bulgaria in 2013; works were suspended after the European Commission said that the project might infringe EU competition laws, including third-party access. EU-Russia relations have worsened over the Ukraine crisis. However, the European Commission plans to go ahead with talks on the project in the next bilateral meeting on 9 December 2014.
Source: Gazprom