Slovenia: Gazprom and Plinovodi Define South Stream Parameters

Russian Gazprom and the Slovenian transportation company Plinovodi have today signed an agreement to define the parameters of the South Stream pipeline through Slovenia.

The announcement comes following a meeting in Slovenia between CEO of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, Slovenian President Danilo Turk and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa. During this meeting, a statement from Gazprom says, cooperation in the energy sector was discussed, with special attention paid to South Stream.

In another meeting, Mr. Miller met with Marjan Eberlinc, President of the Board of Plinovodi, the Slovenian transportation company tasked with implementing South Stream in Slovenia. During this meeting, Mr. Miller and Mr. Eberlinc signed a Supplementary Agreement, which is an annex to the South Stream Slovenia LLC Shareholders Agreement signed in March 2011.

This document details and sets out the exact parameters of layout of the Slovenia portion of the South Stream pipeline. As a result of the signing, a new company will be set up within the next month, South Stream Slovenia LLC. This joint project company will concern itself with the details mandated by the signing, including spatial planning, environmental impact assessment and basic engineering works.

The statement from Gazprom also says that a final investment decision (FID) will be made by both parties in November of this year.

Slovenian newspaper Delo reported that the Slovenian section of South Stream gas pipeline is worth EUR 1 billion, citing Plinovodi director Marjan Eberlinc.

According to the newspaper the initial capacity of the Slovenian section of South Stream will be 8 billion cubic meters of gas annually and later it will reach 25 billion cubic meters annually.