Executive says Gazprom sure of TurkStream’s launch in 2019

MOSCOW, Apr 29 (PRIME) -- Russian gas giant Gazprom is sure that it will launch the TurkStream natural gas pipeline until the end of 2019, Dmitry Khandoga, deputy head of the company’s external economic affairs department, said in a conference call on Monday.

“Regarding the TurkStream, we are sure that the project will be launched until the end of this year…Pipelining at the sea bottom has been finished, we are now finishing works on the receiving terminal, that is what regards the sea part. Gazprom is now conducting works on construction of an onshore transit thread together with Botas,” he said.

“The progress is tangible, and works on welding and pipe construction have already started in Turkey, that is why we do not doubt that the project will start working until the end of this year.”

Further development of gas transportation capacities of Europe outside Turkey are outside of Gazprom’s competence and should be done by national operators in each country, he said.

The TurkStream pipeline was designed to consist of two branches with a length of over 900 kilometers and a capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters each. One of them, finished in May 2018, is to carry Russian gas to Turkey, while the other is to transit gas to the European countries through Turkey and is to be finished in 2019.

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