OREANDA-NEWS. Alexander Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Paolo Scaroni, Chief Executive Officer of ENI signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the South Stream project execution.

The Memorandum was signed in the frames of the bilateral Agreement on strategic cooperation as of November 14, 2006.

The Memorandum sets the cooperation directions for both companies in the engineering, financing, construction and management sectors for the South Stream project.

Pursuant to the document, the South Stream marine section will lay across the Black Sea from the Russian coast (the Beregovaya compressor station) to the Bulgarian coast. The parties consider two different construction routes for the onshore section crossing the territory of the European Union member countries.

Within the project execution Gazprom and ENI will utilize modern technologies in compliance with the strict environmental requirements.

The South Stream is a gas pipeline system, which will join Russia and Europe across the Black Sea. The total length of the Black Sea gas pipeline section is around 900 km, the total depth is more than 2000 m.