GREECE/FILE: Greece, Russia and Bulgaria sign a historic deal to build a trans-Balkan oil pipeline

Record ID: 345136

  • Title: GREECE/FILE: Greece, Russia and Bulgaria sign a historic deal to build a trans-Balkan oil pipeline
  • Date: 16th March 2007
  • Summary: (W3) RECENT (MARCH 15, 2007) (REUTERS) MAP OF THE REGION INCLUDING GREECE AND TURKEY MAP OF PROPOSED PIPELINE GOING FROM BURGAS TO ALEXANDROUPOLIS
  • Embargoed: 31st March 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVA8KU51QZ61KKL2741LYQA7MLB0
  • Story Text: Greece, Russia and Bulgaria sign a historic deal to build a trans-Balkan oil pipeline that will bypass the busy Turkish Bosphorus Straits shipping route and pump cheaper crude oil to the Mediterranean.
    Energy ministers of Russia, Bulgaria and Greece sign a much delayed historical agreement to build a pipeline to bringing oil to the European market.
    The agreement which took 14 years to negotiated, was finally signed in Athens, at the palace of Greek President Karolos Papoulias, by the three countries' energy ministers, under the watchful eyes of their leaders.
    Three state-controlled Russian firms, Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and Transneft, will share 51 percent control of the project.
    Greece and Bulgaria will share the remaining 49 percent.
    Initially conceived in 1993 as a means of increasing the speed of oil transport from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean by avoiding delays in the Turkish Bosphorus Straits, wrangling over the administration delayed the project for years.
    Russia will ship oil to the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas to supply the 279-km (173-mile) pipeline between Burgas and the Greek Aegean port of Alexandroupolis. It will bypass the congested Bosphorus Staits were tanker delays cost oil companies nearly $1.0 billion a year.
    Leaders said the project will increase and facilitate supply to the region, and to world energy markets.
    "Besides the benefits it has for each of our countries, this is an agreement that benefits international energy markets by increasing the access to oil at a time when oil issues are a top priority for all countries and the world," said Karamanlis.
    Greece hopes the project will make it a regional energy hub, especially after a Turkish-Greek-Italian pipeline pumping natural gas from the Caspian Sea and the Middle East to energy-hungry Europe starts operating early next year.
    Putin heralded the agreement as a way to help promote stability.
    "First, this will give us the ability to broaden supplies to world energy markets and secondly to separate supply routes in the world market. For these two reasons, this project will bring stability to the world market and in this region," said Putin.
    Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said the pipeline, being built in two European Union member states will also benefit Europe's energy strategy.
    The project is expected to cost 950 million to 1.0 billion euros.
    The pipeline is expected to be opened by 2009 and will pump 35 million tonnes of crude oil a year with the potential to reach 50 million tonnes
    Leaders said ecological concerns will be taken into account during the building and operating of the pipeline, and the project will also benefit in terms of investment and jobs.
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