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Phase One of the Nord Stream pipeline, which will have a carrying capacity of 971 BCF of gas per year, is to be put into operation in 2011. The completion of Phase Two construction by 2012 will increase its capacity to 1.9 TCF.

The pipeline subcontractors reflect the broad international nature of this project. Italy’s Saipem is laying the offshore pipes, while Europipe produced 75% of the pipes and Russia’s United Metallurgical Company manufactured the other 25%. Nord Stream AG invested more than €1 billion in the production of pipe for Phase One of the pipeline. France’s EU-PEC PipeCoatings S.A. is handling the logistics of the project, including the pipe wrapping, as well as interim pipe transportation, loading, and storage. These services are worth an estimated €650 million. On June 19, 2010, Gazprom and Gaz de France Suez signed an agreement allowing the French company to join the Nord Stream project with a 9% stake.

The new gas pipeline has considerable importance for reliably meeting the European market’s growing needs for natural gas. Forecasts indicate that gas imports to the EU will increase by roughly 7 TCF over the next decade, or by more than 50%. By directly linking the world’s largest gas reserves in Russia with the European gas transportation system, Nord Stream will be capable of satisfying approximately 25% of this additional demand for imported gas.

Enhanced cooperation between Balkan countries and Russia in the creation of additional gas transportation corridors will enable this region to fully satisfy its demand for energy resources in the coming years, thus providing stable economic growth. The South Stream gas pipeline, a large-scale joint project between Gazprom and Italy’s ENI, will play an important role in this process. Under the project, a gas pipeline will run from Russia to Bulgaria along the bottom of the Black Sea and carry gas through Bulgaria to the rest of southern Europe. One of the biggest advantages of this pipeline is that it will bypass problematic transit countries such as Ukraine and Belarus. The pipeline has a projected carrying capacity of 1.1 TCF of gas per year.

The South Stream pipeline, which is being built by Russia, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary, is an extremely important transportation project for southern and central Europe that will provide a strategy for diversifying gas supplies. Total investment in the project is estimated at more than $10 billion. The offshore segment of the gas pipeline will run along the bottom of the Black Sea from the Beregovaya Compressor Station on the Russian coast near the village of Arkhipo-Osipovka to the Bulgarian city of Burgas. The pipeline will be about 560 miles long and run at a maximum depth of more than 6,500 feet. The land-based segment of the pipeline will consist of two branches. One of them will run southwest, through Bulgaria and Greece and across the Adriatic Sea, to the Italian city of Brindisi, while the second branch will travel northwest through Serbia and Hungary. South Stream AG, an equally owned joint venture set up by Gazprom and ENI and registered in Switzerland in mid-January 2008, will be working on a feasibility study for the pipeline’s construction in 2011. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2013.

At the signing of the project agreement in Sofia on January 18, 2008, Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev said: “Bulgaria’s interests in the project have been fully taken into consideration, since the company that is being set up to build and manage the pipeline on Bulgarian territory will have equal 50% ownership by each side.... Bulgaria’s involvement in this project will significantly enhance the country’s role on the energy map of Europe. And since Bulgaria will own a 50% share, its interests will not be violated under any circumstances, including with respect to receiving dividends.”9

A Russian-Serbian intergovernmental agreement on oil and gas industry cooperation was signed in Moscow on January 25, 2008, covering, among other issues, the construction of the Serbian segment of the South Stream gas pipeline system. The Serbian segment of the pipeline is to have a capacity of at least 353 BCF of gas per year. In addition, an underground gas storage facility with active capacity of at least 10 BCF is to be built on the basis of the depleted Banatski Dvor gas field 37 miles northeast of the Serbian city of Novi Sad. Serbia will earn some €100–200 million each year solely from the transit of gas across its territory.

Russia and Hungary signed an intergovernmental agreement to cooperate in the construction of the South Stream pipeline in Moscow on February 28, 2008, and Gazprom and the Hungarian Development Bank set up an equally owned joint venture to handle issues related to the pipeline. The Hungarian segment of the pipeline will cost the joint venture about €700 million to build. In a March 10, 2008 interview with Rossiyskaya gazeta, Hungarian Minister of Finance Janos Veres stated: “I would single out three important points in regards to the South Stream project. First, with the construction of the new gas pipeline, Hungary will acquire a new route by which it can receive gas. In the past, we received gas from Russia through only one pipeline that transited Ukraine. Now a gas pipeline will run to us from the south, through Serbia. This alone will diversify gas supplies for us, which is something on which our economy greatly depends. It will make gas supplies more secure for us. Second, a segment of the new gas pipeline to Europe will be built on Hungarian territory. Its construction promises to be extremely profitable. A state-owned company is to take part in the project on Bulgaria’s behalf, and its capital investments are expected to see a quick return and start generating profit for the treasury. Once the gas pipeline is put into operation, the country will start receiving duties for the transit of gas to Western European nations, which will also contribute to the treasury. Finally, in addition to the gas pipeline itself, the South Stream project envisions the construction of a large gas storage facility on Hungarian territory with capacity to store about 1 billion cubic meters [35 BCF]. An agreement on this issue has been signed. All of this means that, on top of previous volumes, Hungary will receive a substantial amount of new gas for storage in the near future. This, in turn, will only strengthen the country’s energy security.”