Construction of South Stream gas pipeline will begin at the Russkaya compressor station on Russia’s Black Sea coast on Friday.
“This will be the biggest compressor station in the world,” said Gazprom Transgaz Krasnodar Director Igor Tkachenko, adding that a total of 63 billion cubic meters of gas would go through the station a year, which is ten percent of a total gas demand in Europe. Around USD 15.82bn will be invested in the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline that will carry Russian natural gas under the Black Sea to Europe.
The section under the Black Sea will go from the Beregovaya compressor station on Russia’s coast to Burgas on the Bulgarian coast.
The section of the pipeline that will go under the Black Sea will be around 900 kilometers long and its maximal debt will be two kilometers.
The Russian gas system will get additional 2,446 kilometers of pipelines and ten compressor stations with a total capacity of 1.437 megawatts in order to enable the annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters. The project, dubbed South Corridor, will be realized in two phases by December 2019.
The South Stream pipeline is of strategic importance for Europe’s energy security and it is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2015.
The pipeline will go through Serbia and construction works in its territory should begin by the end of December.
Serbia’s Energy Minister Zorana Mihajlović has announced that the Law on South Stream should be adopted by the end of the year and that the construction in Serbia will begin this month.
The first draft law is expected in 15 days and it will be immediately sent to the Serbian parliament, she said and noted that Serbia had an obligation toward its Russian partners to adopt the bill.
The pipeline’s capacity through Serbia will reach 40 billion cubic meters per year and it is expected that Serbia will become a regional hub for natural gas supply for the Republic of Srpska (RS), Hungary, Slovenia and Austria.
The project of the South Stream route through Serbia is the biggest investment project in Serbia in the last six decades and its estimated values is around EUR 2bn.
The pipeline in Serbia will be built by company South Stream Serbia where Russia’s Gazprom holds a 50 percent stake, while the other half is owned by Italy’s ENI, French EDF, and Germany’s BASF.
Source B92
