South Stream to be Realized

The Chief Executive of the South Stream Transport has brushed aside concerns over economic viability and technological challenges, stating that project to transport natural gas from Russia to the European Union is on schedule to be built by the end of 2015.

“It’s a reality,” Marcel Kramer told Reuters, adding that the company was close to concluding financing for the $39 billion project by early 2014.

"That is the ultimate acid test for the viability of a project like that," he commented.

Kramer said that South Stream is working on the first pipe being in place by the end of 2015, a schedule agreed to by project shareholders Gazprom,  EDF, Eni SpA, the Wintershall unit of BASF.

Stretching more than 2,000 kilometres across seven European countries, including a 925 km section across the Black Sea through Turkish territorial waters, the South Stream pipeline represents one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects undertaken, with huge engineering and environmental implications.

Gazprom's development of South Stream to serve the energy needs to the south and east of the European continent follows after the successful completion of the Nord Stream pipeline to supply the northern European market.