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09.02.2015 17:36- Yıldız and Miller during a meeting in 2011
© Gazprom, RIA Novosti
On Feb. 7 Turkey’s energy minister and Russia’s Gazprom chief took a helicopter ride over the Black Sea to survey a possible route for the “Turkish Stream” pipeline.
Energy Minister Taner Yıldız and Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller took off from Istanbul and flew along the Black Sea coast, continuing as far as Ipsala on the Turkish-Greek border, to evaluate the possible entry points of the proposed pipeline, a statement on Gazprom’s website reads.
The two officials made it back to Istanbul by using a route over the Marmara Sea coastline to finish the four-hour flight.
Yıldız said a research committee would file a report on the first assessments of the pipeline soon, possibly by Feb. 10. The committee would consist of Gazprom members and Turkey’s Petroleum Pipeline Corporation, BOTAŞ.
“With the four-hour aerial tour, we had an opportunity to see how we can begin such a project in Thrace and explore the pipeline route,” he said. “We passed over some places two to three times as we tried to assess how we can work with environmental concerns in some agricultural areas, forests and wet lands,” he added.
Yıldız also said the negotiation process for the pipeline involved discussions over the price of natural gas from Russia for Turkey. “Turkey is sensitive about negotiations on the price of natural gas as much as it is about the realization of the Turkish Stream pipeline,” he said.
In December, Russia scrapped the South Stream project, which planned to carry gas under the western Black Sea to Bulgaria and further into European markets.
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.
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