The head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, reported to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday that the construction of the Blue Stream-2 gas pipeline (under the Black Sea via Turkey to Israel) is to go ahead as planned. Turkey has confirmed that it is interested. "I think the new Israeli Government will support the project," Mr Putin said.
Blue Stream-2 is going to run parallel to Blue Stream-1, which is already pumping gas to Turkey, but Turkey knows that it will need more fuel in several years' time. It looks as if Turkey has given up on the pro-American Nabucco project (bypassing Russia), which initially it wanted to join.
Mr Miller also told Mr Putin that Gazprom and major European gas companies had come to the conclusion that the declaration on the modernisation of the Ukrainian gas transportation system signed by Ukraine and the European Commission was absolutely impossible to implement. The strange Ukrainian dream, which the European Commission briefly shared, is unrealistic. "The document has been developed without the main players in the European gas market - Russia as the supplier and the European companies that are major consumers of Russian gas," Mr Miller said, conveying the opinion of European gasmen to the Prime Minister. "It is absolutely a non-working document."
Larisa Viktorova