Report: Medvedev: No decision on Turkish Stream expansion yet

MOSCOW, Mar 4 (PRIME) -- The Russian government has not yet made a final decision on the expansion of the TurkStream natural gas pipeline to the territory of Bulgaria, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Bulgarian newspaper Trud released on Monday.

“The option to expand the second string of the TurkStream pipeline to Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary is being discussed. We are sure that gas cooperation is in line with the interests of our economies… including the economies of Russia and Bulgaria, and Europe as a whole,” he said.

“The decision… will be largely dependent on readiness of gas transport infrastructure which is directly linked to the interest and specific actions of the states’ governments.”

Medvedev also said that Russia will need additional guarantees from the states that want to share the pipeline to avoid repetition of the situation with the South Stream pipeline project. It was stopped after the E.U. had blocked plans for a pipeline under the Black Sea to Bulgaria in 2014 at the height of the Ukraine crisis.

First deputy director of Medvedev’s administration Sergei Prikhodko told reporters that the European states that want to be involved in the construction need to get firm guarantees from the E.U. that the plans will not be disrupted by a politically-motivated decision.

“We certainly need guarantees. The final decision on the route will be made taking into account the E.U.’s stance,” 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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