Russia's Putin sees second Black Sea gas pipeline
Reuters
Date: 11-17-05
SAMSUN, Turkey, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the possibility on Thursday of a second pipeline under the Black Sea carrying Russian natural gas and oil to Turkey.
"There is an opportunity to build another oil or gas pipeline under the Black Sea," Putin said at a ceremony in the Turkish Black Sea port of Samsun held to inaugurate the Blue Stream gas pipeline.
Elucidating Putin's remarks, a senior Turkish energy official told Reuters Russia planned to build an oil pipeline along the route of Blue Stream.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia also hoped to increase the capacity of Blue Stream itself, including if necessary a second gas pipeline.
Putin said Russian companies were ready for further cooperation in the Turkish oil and gas market, not only increasing exports but taking part in building infrastructure and exploration and extraction of oil including taking equity.
"Blue Stream gives us an opportunity for shipping gas to other third countries... There is the opportunity for building new oil and gas transport systems delivering to southern Italy, to the south of Europe as a whole and to Israel," Putin said.
"This year Blue Stream will transport 3.7 billion cubic metres of gas. If Blue Stream reaches its planned capacity, then overall Russian gas exports to Turkey will be 30 billion cubic metres a year," he said.
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also attended Thursday's ceremony.
Italy's Eni and Russia's Gazprom built the gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey.
ENERGY HUB
Erdogan is keen to win the other leaders' support for a $10 billion project for construction of a refinery, an LNG terminal and petrochemical unit in Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
"We plan to make Ceyhan an energy terminal," he told the Samsun ceremony.
"Turkey attaches importance to becoming an energy corridor in both the north-south and the east-west directions and a transit country for both oil and natural gas," he said.
Separately, the head of Italy's ENI and the chief of Gazprom's export arm told reporters in Samsun they would sign a memorandum on energy cooperation in the next two weeks, but gave few details of what it would entail.
Alexander Medvedyev, who heads Gazexport and sits on the Gazprom board, mentioned the possibility of gas deliveries to power stations in northern Italy and also the transit of gas via Turkey to Greece and Israel.
ENI's Paolo Scaroni said his company was interested in taking a share in one of Russia's oil and gas exploration companies and also in joining with Gazprom in the construction of an oil pipeline linking Turkey's ports of Samsun and Ceyhan.
Such a pipeline, strongly backed by Erdogan's government, would carry Russian crude overland down to the Mediterranean, helping to relieve congestion in Turkey's Bosphorus straits.
For Russia and other Black Sea states, the straits provide the only outlet to world markets for oil and products exports. Oil shipment now totals about 2.5 million barrels per day.
Turkey frets about the environmental risks posed by this volume of traffic, but Russia fears the pipeline option would greatly drive up transit costs. Turkey counters that transit delays in the Straits are already increasing companies' costs.
(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun in Samsun)
Source
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
|