MOSCOW – Gazprom has already built around 50 km of the TurkStream gas pipeline along the Black Sea bed, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told the Rossiya 24 TV channel.
“This project is being implemented at full speed. As you know, on June 23 President Vladimir Putin took part in the start of laying the deepwater part of the offshore section of the gas pipeline. As of today about 50 km of the underwater pipeline have been laid along the bottom of the Black Sea,” Novak said.
He also talked about negotiations with Turkey on clarifying the last points of the project’s implementation.
“Today we discussed with our colleagues the point of exit and the approval of the relevant notification to the Russian side on the point of exit to the onshore section in Turkey. We agreed on this. Such documents will be received soon,” Novak said.
“We talked about the need to approve the environmental impact study soon. The Turkish side promised to make a conclusion on this study soon. We talked about the implementation of the onshore section of the project and the approval of a roadmap that would make it possible to already begin implementing the onshore section as well,” Novak said.
“The project is being implemented at a fast pace thanks to support from both the Turkish authorities and from the Russian leadership. All of the necessary decisions were made and Gazprom is now actively implementing this project,” Novak said.
Construction of the offshore pipeline began in shallow waters on the Russian coast at the beginning of May. The project reached the deepwater area of the Black Sea at the end of June. Each line of the offshore pipeline runs more than 900 km. Construction of the first line is supposed to be completed in March 2018 and the second is supposed to be finished in 2019.
