Greece, Russia to cooperate on Turkish Stream pipeline

Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis said at the signing ceremony in the Russian city of St Petersburg that Greece needed support and not pressure during its debt crisis and that cooperation with Russia was not aimed against other countries or Europe. Also speaking at the ceremony, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Russian state-owned gas producer Gazprom would not own the Greek part of the pipeline. Novak said ownership would be split in equal parts between Russia and Greece and that financing could come from state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) or other Russian banks. The cost of the project had not been assessed yet, he added. Under Gazprom's plans, the Turkish Stream pipeline will be split into four lines with a total capacity of 63 billion cubic meters a year. The first line is to supply just Turkey, Kazinform has learnt from Today's Zaman .

The memorandum of understanding was signed during a visit to St Petersburg by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, with time running out for Athens to reach a reforms-for-aid agreement with creditors. Gazprom plans to build a pipeline to Turkey to provide gas to Europe without going through Ukraine although it has no firm agreement with Ankara and faces opposition from the European Union. Moscow has stepped up efforts to find alternative gas supply routes to Europe, its biggest market, that avoid Ukraine, since Ukrainian protesters ousted a pro-Russian president last year and Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula. Gazprom had previously said it would stop the pipeline at Turkish-Greek border where a new gas hub would be created. EU says new Russian pipeline must comply with laws A planned expansion of the Nord Stream pipeline that delivers Russian gas to Germany must comply with EU laws, the European Commission said on Friday, adding it was working to maintain Ukraine's role as an important transit country. Russia's Gazprom said on Thursday that Royal Dutch Shell and its long-time gas buyers in Europe -- Germany's E.ON and Austria's OMV -- had agreed to build two new Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany. The announcement runs counter to Commission efforts to work with suppliers other than Russia, and to create a robust energy union based on closer collaboration between the 28 member states and sharing of available supplies. Russia provides around a third of the EU's energy. In its first public response to Thursday's news, the Commission said it would be vigilant about enforcing EU law that prevents any one supplier dominating the market and would keep working with Ukraine as "a major reliable transit country".