On Tuesday, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told reporters that the pipeline was still a done deal, but added that it will only have the capacity for 32 billion cubic meters instead of 63 billion.
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“Now we can speak about the capacity of Turkish Stream – it could be up to 32 bcm/y of gas”.
Gazprom had originally planned to supply Europe with a total 63 bcm by 2020 via TurkStream, with the first line of 15.75 bcm designed for Turkey and the rest flowing to Greece onwards to Europe.
The Kremlin sent two offers to the Turkish government for consideration on the pipeline project in mid-2015.
Russian gas giant Gazprom said Wednesday its TurkStream pipeline project with Turkey would be delayed as tensions between Moscow and Ankara peak over Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict, AFP reports.
But even if the startup of Turkish Stream development is formally postponed to 2017, as is expected, there will be no negative fallout for the project, according to Gazprom’s Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Medvedev.
“We could have had the first line project implemented in December 2016, [but] this deadline is shifting”. “Now, given that there are no intergovernmental agreements, this timeframe is being moved”.
Last month, Gazprom signed a shareholders’ agreement with Europe’s BASF, E.ON, Engie, OMV and Shell, to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline system, moving forward on an expansion previously opposed by European Union authorities. “Nothing awful would happen if it is postponed by one year”, Medvedev said in St Petersburg. “Its construction and introduction is now hampered by an unresolved dispute about a discount on gas (10.25 percent) for the Turkish BOTAS”.
“An intergovernmental agreement has not been signed yet”, he said. Turkey holds new parliamentary elections November 1.
Turkish airspace by Russian military forces. But the flights underline the differences between two countries, which are already at odds over Syria and other major global issues. “Turkey does not recognise the annexation of Crimea by Russian Federation”, Skinner said, also highlighting historical differences over the [1915] Armenian genocide and Kurdish minority rights as examples.
“Ankara has no plans to become a “gas energy center” through this project in the near future”, he said.
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Gazprom just might have a few problems in hand with the Turkish Stream pipeline and all that could be growing with the political crisis faced by Turkey.
