Azernews.Az

By Nigar Abbasova

Turkish Stream gas pipeline project will be eventually implemented, Bloomberg quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as saying on September 2.

Putin further mentioned that Turkey and Russia have many projects in energy sphere, and Turkish Stream is one of them.

“I think, we will eventually implement it. At least, its first part, related to expanding of transport capabilities and increasing supplies to the Turkish domestic market, but also with the possibility to transport to European partners, if they wish to, and if the European Commission will support it,” he said.

Construction of one or two branches is not expected to allow Russia to fully abandon gas supplies via Ukraine, but at least it will give the opportunity to supply gas to Turkey directly, rather than via Ukraine.

Turkish Stream, which is expected to bring Russian gas via the Black Sea into Turkey and southern Europe, became topical following mending of Russia-Turkey ties.

The issue was also on agenda during the meeting of Russian and Turkish Presidents in St. Petersburg on August 9, which became the first meeting after the Su-24 bomber incident, which deteriorated ties between the two countries.

Turkish President Erdogan said earlier that some 50 percent of the construction of the Turkish Stream project falls to a share of Turkey, while another 50 percent accounts for Russia, stressing that there is no problem in the realization of the project.

One of the obstacles that a project faced before deterioration of ties was failure of the sides to reach joint position over gas price.

The Turkish Stream project was announced by President Putin in December 2014 during a visit to Turkey.

The sides reached an agreement on the discounting of 10.25 percent, provided that the project will be realized. However, the terms didn’t satisfy Turkey, and Botas appealed to arbitral court.

Meanwhile, judicial proceedings on the suit of Botas against Gazprom on gas prices will start in the second half of 2017, Gazprom reported. Main issue of legal proceedings is revision of gas prices, namely, discounting.

Initially, the Russian Gazprom company planned that the Turkish Stream pipeline would consist of four branches with capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters per year each and 63 billion cubic meters of gas per year in general.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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