Nabucco pipeline

Photo: TANJUG

Russia, Hungary and Serbia have returned to the negotiating table on the issue of building the South Stream gas pipeline, Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto said Friday.

A whole set of rigorous Energy Community's requirements for the construction of the now abandoned South Stream pipeline does not apply to Nord ("north") Stream.

"We could have Israeli gas in Turkey in the next three to four years," said Shaul Meridor, the Israeli Energy Ministry's director general, at the eighth annual Atlantic Council Istanbul Summit. 

Hungary's Foreign Minister has argued the abandoned South Stream gas pipeline project could be revisited following the early election in Bulgaria next month.

RIA Novosti quotes Peter Szijjarto as saying: "All these countries in the Western Balkans and Central Europe, we have the interest of revitalizing South Stream."

The abandoned South Stream gas pipeline project designed to pump Russian gas into Central Europe via Bulgaria "will probably be carried out," Russia's commercial attaché to Bulgaria has said.

At a Russian-Bulgarian business forum in Bulgaria, Igor Ilinkin has recalled that South Stream's alternative project, Turkish Stream, will only consist of two pipes.

The World Bank and Turkey's gas grid BOTAŞ signed a $400 million financing deal on Feb. 8 for the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) project, which will carry gas from a gas field in Azerbaijan across Turkey and further on to Europe.

Following his meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Russia's readiness to renew energy partnerships with Bulgaria, despite lingering disappointent over the collapse of the South Stream gas pipeline project.

The Federation Council of Russia has approved the law for the ratification of the agreement between the governments of Russia and Turkey on the Turkish Stream pipeline.

Russia's Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, approved a bill on an agreement between Russian and Turkish governments on the construction of the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline on Feb. 1, TASS News Agency has reported. 

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which aims to pump Azeri gas to Europe by 2020, will cost 4.5 billion euros in total, the project chief has stated.