OREANDA-NEWS. Today in Turkey Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Taner Yildiz, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of the Turkish Republic addressed the progress with the project for constructing the gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey via the Black Sea and made a flying inspection of the projected route of the onshore gas pipeline.

The parties defined the key reference points of the route and technical solutions for the gas pipeline in Turkey. In particular, the meeting chose the landfall location – near Kayakoy village, the gas delivery point for Turkish consumers in Luleburgaz and a border crossing between Turkey and Greece in Epsila. The gas pipeline length will total 180 kilometers.

In the near future a permit is to be obtained for conducting FEED operations for the new Turkish offshore section.

The growing demand for natural gas in the Istanbul district will be taken into account in the gas pipeline design; therefore, the volume of gas to be delivered to the border between Turkey and Greece was specified and estimated at 47 billion cubic meters. The capacity of the offshore gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey will amount to 63 billion cubic meters a year, the first string is to be completed by December 2016.
Background

On December 1, 2014 Gazprom and Turkish company Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation signed the Memorandum of Understanding on constructing an offshore gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea. The gas pipeline will have a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, with nearly 50 billion cubic meters to be conveyed to a gas hub on the border between Turkey and Greece. Gazprom Russkaya will be in charge of the gas pipeline construction.

Turkey is Gazprom's second largest sales market behind Germany. In 2014 Gazprom supplied Turkey with 27.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Turkey currently receives Russian natural gas via the Blue Stream and the Trans-Balkan gas pipelines.