BELGRADE, April 27 (RIA Novosti) - Slovenian Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said Russia’s construction of the South Stream gas pipeline remains a priority for her country, which pursues economic development and foreign investments.
Bratusek, who replaced former Prime Minister Janez Janza on March 20, held her first meeting in the capacity of the head of the government with Russian energy giant Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller on Friday discussing the construction of the pipeline, which started last December.
The Slovenian prime minister asked Miller to timely inform her on the implementation of the project, the government’s press service said. According to Bratusek, Slovenia’s investments in the project will total some 1.1 billion euros ($1.4 billion).
The South Stream pipeline will transport up to 63 billion cubic meters of natural gas to central and southern Europe along the Black Sea seabed, diversifying Russian gas routes away from transit countries such as Ukraine.
Gazprom and Slovenia signed a final deal to build the Slovenian stretch of the South Stream gas pipeline in November last year.
The pipeline’s commercial deliveries of natural gas to Europe are expected to start in the first quarter of 2016 and the project is set to reach its designed capacity of 63 billion cu m in 2018. The project’s cost, including the pipeline’s overland sections, is estimated at $16 billion.
