Eastring Better Than South Stream, Says Eustream

While Hungary is moving closer to Moscow, Slovakia’s Eustream is pushing forward its project to increase its regional clout and offer an alternative to pipelines from Russia to the Balkans.  

Last week, Eustream wrote that it is prepared to put the Slovak-Hungarian pipeline into operation. More importantly, Eustream is proposing a gas pipeline to ship gas into Romania and then on to Bulgaria.

Eustream Chairman Tomas Marecek told Reuters that the pipeline with a leg in Romania to the Balkans would be the best solution on both an economic and diplomatic point of view.  

"It would cost only a fraction of the proposed South Stream budget, it could transport gas in both directions, provide the region with an alternative route and sources of gas and at the same time it will utilise existing gas infrastructure in the region” Marecek said in an interview on Friday. 

Eustream is proposing the so-called Eastring project, which would have an initial capacity of 12.5 bcm. 

The Slovak system operator also questioned whether the recent year-on-year decrease in Russian exports had anything to do with possible technical difficulties at the west Siberian fields.