Serbian PM Says Russian Move to Abandon South Stream Not Good News

Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that Russia's decision to abandon the South Stream gas pipeline project is not good news for Serbia.

On Monday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said Russia had shelved plans to build South Stream and is instead ready to build another pipeline system to Turkey.

The South Stream project, spearheaded by Russia's Gazprom, was planned to carry gas from Russia to central and southern Europe via Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia.

The construction of South Stream's offshore part cannot start as Bulgaria has not given its permission and Russia has been forced to reconsider its participation in the project, Putin further said.

South Streamis a good project, to which Serbia did not turn its back even under the greatest possible pressure, Vucic said in a video file posted on the website of his Serbian Progressive Party.

In June, the Bulgarian government said it had halted the construction of the gas pipeline on its territory until it complies with EU legislation.

Commercial operation of South Stream - whose total value was estimated at 16 billion euro ($19.9 billion), was scheduled to start by the end of 2015 with the pipeline reaching its full capacity of some 63 billion cubic metres per year by 2017.

In Serbia, a deal worth around 2.1 billion eurofor the construction of the local section of the pipeline was signed in July between state-owned gas company Srbijagas and Russia's Centrgaz, 99.99%-owned by Gazprom. The local stretch of the pipeline was planned to run for 422.4 kilometres.

Source: SeeNews