Russia and Bulgaria will set up a joint venture on the South Stream project by February, 2011, the Novinite.com news portal said on Friday, citing Bulgarian Energy Minister Traicho Traikov.
Earlier on Friday Russia and Bulgaria started talks in the Bulgarian resort of Varna aimed at settling all the economic and technical details of the South Stream project's "road map".
Russia and Bulgaria signed an agreement on the South Stream project in January 2008, and both financial and technical preparations were scheduled to be put together by mid-2010.
Traikov also spoke of "the possibility" of reducing prices for Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria, although he said no final decision had been made.
He also refused to say whether Bulgaria would sign up to the road map if there was no reduction in prices.
Gazprom announced in June the possibility of re-routing South Stream through Romania, instead of Bulgaria, after Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said that his country would not proceed with previous agreements to build the joint gas pipeline with Russia and Greece.
However Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov later said Bulgaria had agreed to participate in the South Stream project, and the agreement would be signed on July 16.
The South Stream project is a gas pipeline to transport Russian gas to western Europe bypassing Ukraine. The offshore part, operated by Russia's Gazprom and Italy's ENI, will run from Russia's mainland under the Black Sea to the Bulgarian coast.
The launch of the gas pipeline is scheduled for December 2015.
MOSCOW, July 16 (RIA Novosti)
