South Stream to run to northern Italy rather than Austria

Gazprom has set the route for the South Stream pipeline project. The pipeline will run to northern Italy rather than Austria, as Nabucco is lobbying it, RIA Novosti reports.

The route was initially set through Europe in Sochi in September, after signing of the deal on construction of the maritime section of the South Stream.

The pipeline will run from the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia and then to Italy. Gas pipeline branches are planned to be connected with Greece, Croatia and the Serbian Republic (part of Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Thus, Gazprom has abandoned the version of gas transport to the hub of Austria’s Baumgarten and construction of the pipeline through Greece and the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy.

Gazprom also ruled out the replacement of Bulgaria, which had been dragging the project out for years, with Romania. The Bulgarian government made the Russian pipeline a facility of national significance.
Gazprom was initially planning to join the hub at Baumgarten, where the Central European Gas Hub (CEGH) and an underground gas reservoir system are located.

The main Caspian gas supplies will arrive there, bypassing Russia thorugh the Southern Gas Corridor via the Nabucco pipeline.

Austria was the last potential transit state of the Southern Gas Corridor. It signed a deal with Russia in 2010, in exchange for concessions.

Gazprom and OMV (Austria) founded a joint venture to design and construct the Austria pipeline section. A 40-km pipeline will run from the border of Hungary. Another deal was signed for purchase of 50% of OMV’s CEGH.

Yet Gazprom deputy head Alexander Medvedev said in summer that the European Commission considered some conditions in the deals inappropriate and blocked it. Brussels does not want problems with the Nabucco project. Its source of gas has not been determined yet.