Bulgaria and Turkey are discussing the issue of gas supplies to North Macedonia, Romania and Moldova through the gas hub proposed by Russia in Turkey, the Anatolia agency reports, citing Interfax, Dnevnik (Bulgaria) writes.
In October, President Vladimir Putin proposed that Russian gas flow to the EU from a hub in Turkey fed by Black Sea water after the Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea was rendered unusable by a series of underwater explosions.
The Kremlin’s idea was welcomed by Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who almost immediately announced that he had ordered the start of a study in the Turkish region of Thrace on the need to build facilities.
The Anatolia agency also reports that on February 14-15, the Istanbul Gas Summit will be held in Istanbul, which will be attended by gas-producing countries of the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Central Asia, as well as consumers from Europe.
The EU has not officially commented on Russia’s alternative route, but reducing dependence on Russian gas supplies is a top priority amid shrinking supplies since the start of the war in Ukraine. By the end of 2022, it was reported in Brussels that since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the consumption of Russian natural gas has fallen by 20%.
The CEO of the Italian energy company Eni, Claudio Descalzi, said in October of last year that the implementation of the Russian idea is impossible with the current natural gas transportation infrastructure and that it will be necessary to build new gas pipelines, which will increase the cost of supplies. .
From 2023, a ban on the financing of natural gas transportation projects at the expense of European funds will enter into force in the EU, they will not be able to be selected as projects of general interest for the EU and will not be able to receive accelerated permits and financing.
According to the plan of Vladimir Putin, the hub will be supplied with Russian gas through pipelines that were supposed to be part of the unfinished South Stream gas pipeline across the Black Sea to the territory of Bulgaria. Moscow built them to the maximum extent, but after abandoning the project, they built Turkish Stream, which has twice the capacity.
(the material was made with the support of the Rador agency)
Source: Hot News
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