U.S., Russia back competing gas line projects

U.S., Russia back competing gas line projects

At the same time, U.S. companies are proposing an alternative pipeline called Nabuko, intended to bypass Russian-controlled infrastructure.

Gazprom and the Italian ENI recently signed an agreement over the construction project.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bulgarian counterpart Georgi Parvanov held separate talks on Bulgarian support for the project at the Energy Summit in Zagreb held on June 24.

The South Stream project is designed to transport 30 billion square meters of Russian gas per year and thus become a major European source of energy supply.

The pipeline would fork in Bulgaria in two directions—one leading though Romania, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia, and the other through Greece ending up in southern Italy.

ENI and Gazprom would split construction costs.

More importantly, the pipeline would bypass Turkey, which is showing more interest for the Nabuko project.

The Nabuko pipeline would start in Kazakhstan, head through the Caspian Lake and Azerbaijan to Turkey, and continue to Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. 

Western, primarily U.S. companies hope to use the new line to bypass Russia.

Since South Stream will for the most part follow the same route as Nabuko, Russian media have started to speculate who will lay down their pipes first.

They have concluded that much will depend on political relations with the owners of construction land and interested states and according to these criteria, the media are giving South Stream the edge in the gas line race.