Russia ready consider connecting Eastring to Turkish Stream
GORKI. June 2 (Interfax) - Russia is ready to study the issue of connecting the proposed Eastring gas pipeline system to Turkish Stream, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico.
Fico also said that following an end to the transit of Russian gas to the EU via Ukraine and Slovakia after 2020, his country's budget would suffer substantial losses.
"We understand that the agreement on gas transit via Ukraine and Slovakia will not be valid from January 2020. If we aren't going to be gas transiters, then our budget will suffer losses. We've presented our Eastring project to Russia. This should be a joint project between countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia and should be related to the Russian-Turkish route that will start to be implemented from 2016. Slovakia's government should also grant access to its own underground gas storage facilities, so that the gas pipe does not go dry," Fico said.
Fico said the Eastring project would acquire more importance in parallel with Turkish Stream.
The Russian prime minister, for his part, said: "Today, my colleague and I have discussed the implementation of those options that Turkish Stream will provide for European states once the gas reaches the Greek border, and the opportunities for joining all those projects. Including in the framework of what we have spoken about [Eastring]. We're ready to assess what is being put on the table, and the capacity that will be needed, and the financing that will be needed. All this will be coupled with movement Turkish Stream," Medvedev said.
Eastring could stretch up to 1,015 km depending on the final design and would connect mainline pipelines entering the EU at Velke Kapusany with storage facilities in Ukraine and the Soyuz system in the Balkans.
