Moscow (dpa) – Ankara has approved the construction of the South Stream natural gas pipeline through Turkish territorial waters in the Black Sea, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Putin made the announcement in Moscow at a contract signing ceremony between executives of the Russian national gas monopoly Gazprom and the Turkish energy corporation BOTAS, the Interfax news agency reported. Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz was also present. South Stream is a project jointly owned by Russia, Italy, Germany and France and competes directly with the European Nabucco project, which plans a natural gas pipeline traveling overland from the Caucasus region across Turkey to the Balkan nations. “I want to thank Turkey for the decision to give final approval to the construction, in Turkey's exclusive economic zone, of the South Stream pipeline,” Putin said. The BOTAS-Gazprom agreement set down volumes of Russian gas to be delivered to Turkey until 2025. The South Stream pipeline, set to run along the bottom of the Black Sea, would link Caspian natural gas fields with consumers in southern and Central Europe. Laying the pipeline in Turkey's relatively shallow territorial waters allows the project to avoid a more expensive route in deeper international waters. The precise route of South Stream remains to be determined, but is expected to run through Bulgaria and may terminate in either Austria or Italy. Estimates of South Stream's total cost have ranged between 20 and 30 billion dollars. Nabucco officials have said their overland pipeline would be cheaper than South Stream and would allow Caucasian and Central Asian gas producers to deliver fuel to European markets without having to depend on pipelines controlled by the Kremlin. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/ZKKmU Tags: Black Sea, Pipeline, Russia, Turkey Section: Europe
