President Putin OKs ratification of Turkish Stream deal
By Kamila Aliyeva
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on the ratification of the agreement with Ankara on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, Sputnik International reported.
The lower house of the Russian Parliament, the State Duma, ratified the agreement January 20, while the upper house, the Federation Council, ratified the document on February 1.
Moscow and Ankara signed an intergovernmental agreement in October 2016 envisioning the construction of two underwater legs of the gas pipeline in the Black Sea.
Once completed the pipeline will carry Russian natural gas to Turkey under the Black Sea, and on to Greece and Europe. The project, with an estimated total cost of $13 billion, was announced in December 2014 during Putin’s visit to Turkey as an alternative to the canceled South Stream gas pipeline through Bulgaria.
The pipe was initially designed to involve four threads transporting a total volume of 63 billion cubic meters of gas, the amount of South Stream, but now the project envisions the construction of two underwater legs of the gas pipeline in the Black Sea.
The annual capacity of each leg is estimated to reach 15.75 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Pipe-laying work for the Turkish Stream is expected to begin in 2017 and end in late 2019.
The first line intends to meet Turkey’s demands in the energy source, while the second is aimed to provide demand of consumers in Southeastern Europe bypassing Ukraine.
The project was earlier halted in late 2015 due to sharp deterioration of relations between Moscow and Ankara when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber with two pilots on board. The project realization became a topic of great importance following restoration of ties between the two countries.
Being the second biggest consumer of Russian gas after Germany, Turkey currently imports around 30 billion cubic meters gas from Russia annually via two pipelines - the Blue Stream, which passes under the eastern Black Sea, and the Western Line through the Balkans.
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