Turkey to Build Only Land Section of Gas Pipeline From Russia: Minister

ANKARA, December 10 (Sputnik) – Turkey will not take part in building the underwater section of a pipeline to deliver gas from Russia but will bear the costs of laying the land section, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Wednesday.

“We have no idea of the costs of the offshore section of the pipeline, because we will not take part in the construction of the subsea section,” he said.

According to the minister, Gazprom expects to spend about 16 billion euro (almost $20 billion) on laying the pipeline at the bottom of the Black Sea.

“We will calculate our costs of building the section that would pass through Thrace,” he said, referring to the area near the borders of Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria.

“We are now in talks on a joint venture for this project,” Yildiz added.

On December 1, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced the construction of a new pipeline to Turkey with an annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters. Some 14 billion cubic meters of gas will be supplied to Turkey, while the rest is to be pumped to a hub on the Turkish-Greece border for customers in southern Europe.

The same day the construction of the Turkish pipeline was confirmed, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the cancellation of the South Stream pipeline project, designed to bring Russian natural gas to a number of EU countries via a new route under the Black Sea, bypassing Ukraine.