Medvedev and Miller Working to Speed Up South Stream

Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Gazprom’s Chairman Alexey Miller are pushing to build South Stream as soon as possible.

Medvedev approved a draft agreement with Macedonia on Friday, while Miller met Bulgarian Ministers to address the Russian-Bulgarian cooperation in the gas sector. 

“The parties shared the opinion that the project execution in Bulgaria would boost the economic growth of the Republic. In particular, building of the new gas transmission infrastructure in Bulgaria will engage nearly 2,500 highly-skilled specialists and attract around EUR 3.5 billion of direct investments,” reads a note released by Gazprom on Monday. 

Miller met with Bulgarian Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski  and the Bulgarian Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Dragomir Stoynev. The parties confirmed their cooperation for the design of the pipeline facilities and for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

"Russia is ready to finance the construction of the whole pipeline on Bulgarian territory, and for that purpose we have provided 3.1 billion euros (4.0 billion U.S. dollars)," Miller told reporters after the meeting.

On Friday, Medvedev approved a draft agreement with Macedonia to build an offshoot from the South Stream gas pipeline. The route, its capacity, the conditions of the Russian gas supplies and the export volumes are to be determined.

Intergovrnmental agreements were signed with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia and Austria to implement the onshore gas pipeline section of the South Stream project, the response to the Southern Corridor bringing gas from the Caspian Sea to European markets via Italy.