Brussels, 19/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - Slovakian gas operator Eustream stated its interest in carrying gas from Turkish Stream, the Russian-Turkish alternative to the South Stream project, through its planned Eastring gas pipeline which is to link Bulgaria, from its border with Turkey, and Slovakia, passing through Romania, then Hungary or Ukraine.
“Eastring could undertake to fulfil part of the (Russian gas group) Gazprom's, or more precisely, Gazpromexport's long-term long contract obligations to the European partners, which Russia has not violated so far, and obviously is not going to violate”, said Mirek Topolanek, director of Eustream's international development department, quoted by several Russian media. “The Eastring will not compete with Turkish Stream, the two pipelines with rather complement each other”, he added.
Russian gas supplied through Turkish Stream to the border between Bulgaria and Turkey could continue its journey towards Western Europe by means of Eastring, which is also looking to supply South-Eastern Europe with gas from Iran, Iraq and Israel, Topolanek said. “Eastring will be the infrastructure designed to be at the disposal of any gas operator, including Gazprom. Supplies of Russian gas from Turkey are part of our strategy, if the announced Turkish Stream initiative is fulfilled”, he went on, adding: “The pipeline must be economically independent from any gas producer”.
The initial capacity of Eastring will 20 billion cubic metres of gas per year, rising to 40 billion. It will be between 800 km and 1,000 km long. The cost of the project is estimated at €1.3 billion and it should be operational by the end of 2018. Furthermore, reverse flows will be possible.
Memoranda of understanding with Romania and Bulgaria are ready to be signed, Topolanek indicated. He believes that the Commission is likely to support the pipeline given that it wants to diversify energy sources and routes.
Gazprom confident. The Russian gas giant believes that its European partners have no doubts as to its reliability, despite the changes to its network development plans in favour of a Turkey route. “You have, most probably, repeatedly heard that of all those partners we are actively cooperating with, Total, GDF and Wintershall, no one has doubted the reliability of the company (Gazprom) and that executives of all those companies said they are sure of profitability and indispensability of long-term Russian gas supplies”, said the director of Gazprom's financial and economic department Andrei Kruglov on Russian television on Wednesday 18 February. (Emmanuel Hagry)