Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is counting on signing an agreement with Austria at the end of this week on building the South Stream gas pipeline, Russian Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko said according to Reuters. Putin plans to visit Austria and Italy from April 24 to 26 – these countries are the end points for two branches of the planned Russian pipeline.
"Inter-governmental agreements on building South Stream are issues that are determined by those who are authorized", Shmatko said, answering a question about the documents being prepared for signing during Putin's visit to Austria. Shmatko did not comment on the prime minister's visit to Italy; Moscow has an earlier agreement Rome on the gas pipeline.
The South Stream pipeline has a planned throughput capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of gas per year and is competing with the European Union's Nabucco pipeline which is meant to pump gas to Europe while circumventing Russia. South Stream, which is equally divided between Gazprom and Italy's Eni is designed to pump gas from Russia along the bed of the Black Sea to southern Europe beginning in 20105.
Russia already has agreements with countries across which the pipeline will run including Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece and Italy.
