Russia Still Ready to Build Gas Pipeline to Southern Europe, Lavrov Says

Moscow hasn't given up on its plans to build a pipeline to carry Russian natural gas to southern Europe across the Black Sea, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has confirmed.

"The southern direction is not yet written off," Lavrov told sputniknews.com earlier this week.

"Sometime in February, I think Gazprom signed a memorandum of mutual understanding together with Italy's Edison and Greece's DEPA on the possible gas deliveries through third countries under the Black Sea to Greece, then Italy," Lavrov added.

Russian media reported last month that the country's energy giant Gazprom had proposed a new option to revive the South Stream pipeline project. The project, designed to carry Russian gas to Europe across the Black Sea and via Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary to a gas hub in Austria, was abandoned by Gazprom over objections from the European Commission in December 2014.

The new pipeline could possibly start from the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in March 2014.ssia's Vesti Finance quotedan adviser to the head of Gazprom Export as saying that alternative routes were being studied for South Stream.

Gazprom signed in March a memorandum of understanding with Greek DEPA and Italian Edison SpA, which allows for gas deliveries to Italy via Greece and "third countries". This could practically mean only Bulgaria (one of Greece's two neighbors to the east) in the context of recent tensions between Moscow and Ankara.