Italy is ready to sign intergovernmental agreement on South Stream
Italy is ready to sign the intergovernmental agreement on its participation in the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline, the Ambassador of Italy in Russia, A. Zanardi Landi said.
The shareholders of the company’ operator of the offshore site of South Stream - South Stream Transport AG – are Gazprom (50%), Eni – 20%, Wintershall – 15% and EdF – 15%.
For the realization of the land part of the project Russia has signed the intergovernmental agreements with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria.
When all the decisions are made, Italy will sign the intergovernmental agreement, it might be in some other form but I think the issue will be settled in this or that way, Mr. Landi said.
He said that when the companies from Germany and France signed the shareholder agreement on the South Stream, the project has become much stronger.
Italy, being supported by Germany and France, will be able to promote this project at the level of the European Commission and settle this issue. So the project has become more realistic. Now we see the perspective, and realize there will be some result of all these discussions, we will be able to realize our plans, Mr. Landi said.
The South Stream project is being realized aiming for the diversification of natural gas supply routes to the European consumers. In Q3 2011 the development of the technical and economic assessment of South Stream was over, that united the technical and economic assessment of the offshore part and the technical and economic assessment of the sites going on the territory of the Southern and Central Europe.
On December 28th 2011 Turkey issued the final permission for Russia for laying the South Stream in its waters, having eliminated the last obstacle in the realization of this project. After that the Prime Minister of Russia, V. Putin, on December 30th ordered Gazprom to accelerate the start of the realization of the South Stream, having started its construction in 2012 but not in 2013 as had earlier been planned. Gazprom has worked out a new schedule of the gas pipeline’s construction which will start in December 2012. The President of Russia, D. Medvedev, ordered to construct the South Stream in the variant of the maximal capacity – 63 bln cubic meters a year.
The gas pipeline is supposed to consist of 4 branches – 15.57 bln cubic meters each. The launch of the first one is planned for December 2015, reaching the full capacity (63 bln cubic meters) – in 2018. The approximate cost of South Stream is €15.5 bln, €10 bln of which – for the offshore part, €5.5 bln – for the land part.
According to the website of Gazprom, 5 variants of laying the pipeline are being considered today: Russia-Bulgaria-Serbia-Hungary-Austria; Russia-Bulgaria-Serbia-Hungary-Slovenia; Bulgaria-Greece-Italy; and a variant including all the mentioned directions. The route Russia-Romania-Serbia and an offset to Croatia from Serbia are considered separately. So these variants do not take into account Macedonia which has shown interest in the project, as well as Montenegro which decided to join the project in February.
The final route of the gas pipeline was planned to be determined together with the making of the investment decision planned for November.
http://rosinvest.com/novosti/924478
Translated by Galiya Musabekova
