Putin, Erdogan officially launch TurkStream gas pipeline

ISTANBUL, Jan 9 (PRIME) -- Russian and Turkish presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially launched the TurkStream gas pipeline on Wednesday.

Russian gas supplies through the TurkStream pipeline will contribute to Europe’s energy security, Putin said at the launching ceremony.

“Supplies of Russian gas through the TurkStream will certainly be of great importance not only for the economy of Turkey and the Black Sea region, but will also have a positive impact on the development of many South European countries, and will also contribute to improving the energy security of Europe in general,” Putin 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. Bulgartransgaz plans to build an extension of TurkStream to Europe by the end of 2020.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said the ministry expects that plans for construction of infrastructure in Bulgaria for the TurkStream will be implemented on time.

“Today, deliveries are already being made to Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Greece. Correspondingly, further transit will be in accordance with the declared terms that the Bulgarian side (stipulated),” he said.

Erdogan said that Russia remains the main supplier of gas for Turkey, and the countries will implement new joint energy projects.

“Turkey’s demand for gas is growing. Russia is our main supplier, we received 400 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia. Our energy cooperation is very successful. We will continue to implement new projects with Russia,” Erdogan said.

Putin said that Russian gas giant Gazprom supplied 24 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey in 2019.

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