Black Sea gas pipeline study approaches FEED stage

Jan. 28, 2015
Gazprom has held talks with the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources on the proposed new gas pipeline across the Black Sea toward Turkey.

Offshore staff

ANKARA, Turkey – Gazprom has held talks with the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources on the proposed new gas pipeline across the Black Sea toward Turkey.

They reviewed the preliminary feasibility study on the new route for the pipeline, which will have four strings with combined capacity of 63 bcm/yr (2.2 tcf/yr).

Gazprom said that 660 km (410 mi) of the route will be laid within the old corridor of theshelved South Stream project and 250 km (155 mi) within a new corridor toward the European part of Turkey.

The company will submit a notice requesting execution of front-end engineering and design (FEED) operations for the new Turkish offshore section. The company will be solely responsible for construction of the offshore section, while the Turkish gas transportation facilities will be built jointly.

Stakes in the project will be determined during future meetings. Turkey’s Botas will develop the project schedule with Gazprom within seven days.

Gazprom chairman Alexey Miller said priorities included studying the route options in Turkey, defining the location of the landfall facilities, and gas delivery points for Turkish consumers and border crossings between Turkey and Greece.

“We agreed to plan our work in such a way that would allow us to sign an intergovernmental agreement on the gas pipeline in the second quarter this year, therefore the first gas would come to Turkey in December 2016. In this respect, the first string’s throughput capacity of 15.75 bcm (600 bcf) will be exclusively intended for Turkish consumers.

“Considering the state of readiness of the Russkaya compressor station and the pipeline’s offshore section, this deadline is absolutely real.”

01/28/2015