Pipelining for Turkish Stream has begun, Russian President Putin tells Erdoğan

ANAPA

Russian President Vladimir Putin held phone talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan aboard an installation vessel on June 23, telling him that work on the Turkish Stream pipeline has started in its deep-water section.

“Our projects with Turkey are developing in a way unlike they are with our many other partners,” Putin said, according to the Sputnik new agency.

“We sometimes spend years with different countries on various administrative approvals, but with Turkey this is done in just a few months and undoubtedly this is because your direct personal support,” he reportedly added.

Noting the Turkish Stream construction agreement was signed in the fall of 2016, Putin said “work has already begun after seven months.”

Putin is observing the alignment of the shallow and deep-water parts of the Turkish Stream aboard the “Pioneering Spirit” pipelining ship in the Russian city of Anapa in the southern Krasnodar Region.

“If our partners want to, we will be ready to supply gas through Turkey to South and Southeast Europe,” Putin was quoted as saying in the Sputnik report.

Meanwhile, the negotiations between Gazprom and European partners on extending the Turkish Stream gas pipeline in Europe stipulate no exclusive terms while the Russian energy giant is receiving proposals on the routes of laying the pipe, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller stated on June 23.

“At present, there are proposals on the route of laying the pipe but there is no exclusiveness. The preliminary agreements with the interested companies have been signed and therefore, the work will be continued,” Miller said in a live broadcast of the Rossiya-24 TV Channel, Russian news agency TASS reported.

The requirements for gas in Europe are increasing and “the Turkish Stream will undoubtedly ensure the reliability of gas supplies to these countries,” the Gazprom chief executive said.

The Turkish Stream pipeline will start from Anapa and will be laid over a 900-kilometer route under the Black Sea to reach the Thrace region of Turkey along the Black Sea coast.

The pipeline is a transit-free export gas pipeline not only stretching across the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey but extending further to Turkey’s borders with neighboring countries. 

One line is expected to supply the Turkish market, while a second line will carry gas to southern and southeastern Europe. Each line will have the throughput capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas per year.