(Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English)
MOSCOW. Nov 14 (Interfax) - Russia and Slovenia on Saturday
signed an agreement on cooperation under the South Stream project, a
plan to lay a pipeline for the transmission of natural gas from
Russia to Italy through Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Serbia, and
Slovenia.
The accord, signed by the Russian and Slovenian energy ministers,
Sergei Shmatko and Matej Lahovnik, in Moscow on behalf of their
countries, allows South Stream to go ahead as Russia has signed all
other similar deals - agreements with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and
Greece - needed for the project to be put into effect.
There will be no such agreement with Italy as the latter is the
final point of the pipeline's route and an Italian company is to
take part in building the pipeline.
The Russian-Slovenian agreement makes it possible to start laying
the pipeline section from Bulgaria to Italy, Russia's Gazprom [RTS:
GAZP] told Interfax.
Russia and Slovenia also reached agreement to make every effort
to obtain the status of a trans-European energy network for the
South Stream pipeline.
The pipeline's Slovenian section is to be designed, built and
operated by a joint venture in which Gazprom and Slovenian company
Geoplin Plinovodi would hold equal shares, the Russian Energy
Ministry told Interfax.
The capacity of the Slovenian section is to be set and the final
part of the pipeline's route to be chosen after the project
feasibility study is finished.
(c) 2009 Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
A service of YellowBrix, Inc.
