Russia scraps South Stream pipeline

Russia scraps South Stream pipeline

Russian President Putin announced on Monday that Russia was abandoning the South Stream gas pipeline project.

In a statement in Ankara, after his meeting with Turkish counterpart Erdogan, he said Russia would redirect gas deliveries to other regions due to the European Commission's non-constructive approach to the implementation of South Stream, Russian website sputniknews.com reported.

Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller confirmed this, saying Russia had no plans to revive the project.

“Taking into account the European Commission’s position, which is not contributing to the realization of this project, taking into account the fact that we have only recently received permission from the respective organizations in the Netherlands… Taking into account the fact that we still have not received Bulgaria’s permission, we think that Russia is unable to continue realization of this project in such conditions,” Putin said.

“We cannot start the construction in the sea until we have Bulgaria’s permission to begin construction in the sea. It would be absurd to reach the Bulgarian coast and to stop then. We think that the European Commission's position was non-constructive. It is not that the European Commission has not helped in realization of this project, we can see that the obstacles are being created in its implementation. So, if Europe does not want to implement it, it means that it will not be realized," he explained.

"We will redirect the flow of our energy resources to other regions of the world, including by advanced and fast realization of liquefied natural gas projects. We will advance to the other markets and Europe will not receive these volumes, at least from Russia. We think that this is not corresponding with Europe's economic interests and causes damage to our cooperation. But this is the choice of our European friends," the Russian president said.

RT.com reported that "Putin believes that Bulgaria isn’t acting like an independent state by delaying the South Stream project, which would be profitable for the country."

He advised the Bulgarian leadership “to demand loss of profit damages from the European Commission” as the country could have been receiving around 400 million euros annually through gas transit.

The EU said that the project violated the European Union's Third Energy Package, while Russia insists that the construction of the pipeline does not contradict the regulations.

Also on Monday in Turkey, Aleksey Miller said Gazprom will build "a massive gas pipeline that will travel from Russia, transit through Turkey, and stop at the Greek border – giving Russia access to the Southern European market," RT.com reported.

The pipeline will have an annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, 4 billion cubic meters of which will be delivered to Turkey, Gazprom’s second biggest customer in the region after Germany.

Russia’s Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said that the new project will include "a specially-constructed hub on the Turkish-Greek border for customers in southern Europe."