Gazprom in talks to build Turkish Stream’s first line

MOSCOW, Aug 20 (PRIME) -- South Stream Transport, an affiliate of Russian gas giant Gazprom, continues negotiations with contractors to build the first line of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project, running under the Black Sea, despite some uncertainty concerning the signing of an intergovernmental agreement with Turkey, a representative of the unit told PRIME on Thursday.

“At the moment we negotiate with a range of companies to conclude a contact on construction of the first marine line,” the person said.

Russia decided to build Turkish Stream to replace the scrapped South Stream project in December 2014. In May its partner in South Stream, Italy’s Saipem, announced changes in the deal conditions which allowed it to build the Turkish Stream sea part, but in July South Stream Transport terminated its contract with Saipem as the partners failed to agree on a range of issues concerning the Turkish Stream project.

Earlier in August, Russia’s Energy Ministry sent two variants of an intergovernmental agreement on the construction of Turkish Stream to Turkey.

Gazprom estimates construction of the four lines of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline at 11.4 billion euros; the construction of the first line is likely to cost 4.3 billion euros

The capacity of Turkish Stream, designed to carry Russian gas to the Turkey–Greece border, is likely to stand at 63 billion cubic meters annually. The capacity of its each line is expected to amount to 15.75 million cubic meters of gas. The first line of the pipeline is designed to carry gas for the Turkish market only.

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