MOSCOW, June 20 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and Austria are to sign an agreement to establish a company to build the Austrian section of the South Stream pipeline as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the country next week, Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov said.
“As part of visit on June 24, an agreement of shareholders of joint project company South Stream Austria will be signed," Ushakov said.
The document, specifying an array of administrative matters, such as the company’s structure and management, is to be inked by Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Austrian energy giant OMV's CEO Gerhard Roiss.
The idea of constructing the Austrian leg of the South Stream pipeline was considered during the first stage of discussions on the project, but the plans stalled over the EU Commission’s demands for the project. In April, Miller and Roiss signed a memorandum of intent to implement the South Stream project in Austria.
Under the project, the Austrian section of the South Stream gas pipeline is to have a capacity of up to 32 billion cubic meters a year extending to the town of Baumgarten. The pipeline is to run from the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria through Serbia and Hungary to Austria.
The South Stream pipeline is to carry Russian natural gas to southern Europe across the Black Sea, bypassing Ukraine. Initially, the first commercial deliveries via the pipeline were expected in the first quarter of 2016, with the pipeline becoming fully operational in 2018.
In the wake of the Russian-Ukrainian standoff, the US and EU have imposed sanctions on Moscow and pressured EU members into scaling back their cooperation in the project. Now Bulgaria has halted the pipeline construction, pending a ruling on whether its involvement in the project complies with the union’s laws.
