St. Petersburg, May 16 - Neftegaz.RU. Russia's Gazprom expects to send its 1st gas through the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline to Turkey by the end of December, Gazprom's deputy chairman Vitaly Markelov said, Turkish Anadolu Agency reported.
V. Markelov confirmed that the sub-sea section to transport 31.5 billion cubic meters per year from Russia to Turkey and Russia's land section have been constructed while Turkey's onshore section is nearly 73% complete.
The TurkStream project consists of two lines across the Black Sea, the 1st of which will serve Turkey with a capacity of 15.75 billion cu m, while the 2nd line is planned to serve Europe. Bulgaria and Serbia have already started work on the infrastructure to accommodate the volumes from TurkStream.
The project is the biggest-diameter offshore gas pipeline in the world laid at such depths. The deep-sea pipelaying was carried out by Pioneering Spirit, the world's biggest construction vessel.
TurkStream will allow Gazprom to redirect some of the volumes it currently exports to Europe through Ukraine.
