Gazprom ‘positive over Turkish Stream despite Syria row’

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Reuters Photo

Political factors will not affect the agreement between Russia and Turkey over the proposed Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller vowed on Oct. 7.

Miller was speaking after Russian jets violated Turkish air space over the weekend and Moscow was accused of bombing Syrian opposition groups supported by Turkey and the West.

“We have already started work on an intergovernmental agreement,” he told reporters in St. Petersburg, according to the state-run Sputnik news agency.

“It does not include talks on concrete details concerning the capacity of the pipeline or schedules for the project implementation, but work on the text of the agreement is underway and it is not influenced by any factors,” Miller added.

On Oct. 6, he had said that Gazprom had decided to nearly halve the planned capacity of the Turkish Stream pipeline project to 32 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year, from an original capacity of 63 bcm.

The decision was due to plans to expand the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany, Miller stated.

The Turkish Stream pipeline is planned to bring gas to Europe without crossing Ukraine. It will cross the Black Sea and emerge close to Turkey’s border with the EU.