On June the 19th, during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia and Greece signed the first official Memorandum of Understanding on the construction of the so-called South-European gas pipeline on the territory of Greece, which will be an extension of the Turkish Stream pipeline. Russia plans to bring gas to the European territory of Turkey, and says it’s up to the EU to decide how to transport it further. In reality, Russia aims to build a pipeline project across Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, and Hungary to Austria Most of Gazprom’s clients have gas contracts which specify Baumgarten as the delivery point. At this incipient stage, the estimated cost of the South European gas pipeline is 2 billion EUR. It seems that the funds needed to start the joint venture will be provided by the Russian side. The construction of the Greek extension of the Turkish Stream is to start in 2016 and is supposed to be completed in 2019. The capacity of the new pipeline is expected to be 47bcm/year. At the same time, Gazprom, together with E.ON, Shell, and OMV, agreed ‘to add two extra strings to the bow’ of the Nord Stream pipeline. The project will not fall under the restrictions of the Third Energy Package. The new project is actually the second Nord Stream, the so called extra wing, parallel to the Nord Stream. For now, the European Commission remains sceptical. “Announcing something is one thing, doing it is quite another,” said a Commission spokesman, adding that any energy project must comply with EU rules. “Our policy is not more gas, but more diversification,” the EU’s [...]
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We represent the widely understood Central Europe energy sector (electricity generation, distribution and transmission, renewables, gas, oil, heat generation and distribution, chemical industries, etc.), universities and scientific institutions.
