Blue Stream

Existing and planned Russian natural gas pipelines to Europe

Blue Stream is a major trans-Black Sea gas pipeline that carries natural gas from Russia into Turkey. The pipeline has been constructed by the Blue Stream Pipeline B.V. , the Netherlands based joint venture of Russian Gazprom and Italian ENI. The Blue Stream Pipeline B.V. is an owner of the sea section of pipeline, including Beregovaya compressor station, while Gazprom owns and operates the Russian land section of the pipeline and the Turkish land section is owned and operated by the Turkish energy company BOTAŞ. According to Gazprom the pipeline was built with the intent of diversifying Russian gas delivery routes to Turkey and avoiding third countries.

The Blue Stream pipeline has been officially inaugurated at the Durusu gas metering station in November 2005 . Attending the inauguration were Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Technical features

By 2010, Blue Stream is expected to be operating at full capacity, delivering 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Total length of the pipeline is 1213 km. The Russia’s land section is 373-km-long from the Izobilnoye gas plant, Stavropol Krai, up to Arkhipo-Osipovka, Krasnodar Krai. The land section consists the Stavropolskaya and Krasnodarskaya compressor stations. The offshore section is 396-km-long laying from the Beregovaya compressor station in Arkhipo-Osipovka to the Durusu terminal locating 60 kilometers from Samsun (Turkey). Turkey’s land section is 444-kilometers up to Ankara.

The pipeline uses pipes with different diameters: mainland section 1400 mm, mountainous section 1200 mm and submarine section 610 mm. The gas pressure in submarine section is 250 atm.

Financing

The total cost of the Blue Stream pipeline came to $3.2 billion, including $1.7 billion spent on building its underwater segment.

Political background

Building the Blue Stream pipeline was intended to be the foundation for a "strategic partnership" between Russia and Turkey, with joint participation in oil, energy, and transport projects. The political decision to sell Russian gas to Turkey was made in December 1997, when the two sides signed a corresponding inter-governmental agreement in which Russia undertook to supply 364.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey between 2000 and 2025. The existing gas transit route went through Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria. But this land route made the gas substantially more expensive, and there were continual reports of gas being illicitly siphoned off while being transported through Ukraine and Moldova. Russia considered that these problems could be solved by building a pipeline across the Black Sea floor.

The construction of Blue Stream was accompanied by environmentalist protests; but these had no significant effect, since the official environmental impact assessment found no transgressions.

Meanwhile, some Russian economic analysts objected that building a pipeline to Ankara meant tying Russia to a monopolist consumer, and Turkey was not a reliable partner.

In the lead-up to Blue Stream's opening ceremony, the United States publicly criticized the pipeline, calling on Europe to avoid becoming any more dependent on Russia for energy.

Competing projects

Trans-Caspian gas pipeline

One of the political goals of the Blue Stream project was to block the path of rival countries aiming to use the territory of Turkey to bring gas from the Middle East and Caspian area to Europe. In November 1999, the presidents of Turkmenistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia signed a four-party inter-governmental agreement on building a rival Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. Within a few months, major oil companies - General Electric, Bechtel, Royal Dutch Shell - had established a joint venture to work on the competing project. By spring 2000, however, an argument had arisen among the Trans-Caspian participant nations over allocating quotas for Azerbaijan's use of the pipeline; as a result, all construction work was halted. Thus, Blue Stream won the battle for the Caspian. However, at the end of 2006, the first section of original Trans-Caspian pipeline--South Caucasus Pipeline from Baku to Erzurum--was opened.

Nabucco pipeline

In late August 2005, Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdoğan discussed building a second line, and an expansion of the Blue Stream line by the Samsun-Ceyhan link. The promotion of construction the second section of pipeline, and extension it up through Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia to western Hungary has activated after decision of five countries to construct the Nabucco Pipeline from Turkey to Central ja Western Europe.

Expansion of pipeline

Construction of the second leg of pipeline will allow to expand Russian gas export to the west (to Central Europe via planned Turkey-Bulgaria-Serbia-Croatia-Hungary pipeline) and to the south (via Samsun-Ceyhan gas pipeline further to Israel and Lebanon).

See also

• South Stream
• Nabucco Pipeline
• Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline
• South Caucasus Pipeline

References

• Oksana Gavshina, "The Turkish Gambit", Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 21 November 2005
• Economic Brief: The Blue Stream Gas Pipeline, by The Power and Interest News Report (PINR), 22 November 2005
• The Blue Stream Pipeline and Geopolitics of Natural Gas in Eurasia, by Mamuka Tsereteli [30 November] 2005
• Turkey looking for more gas projects with Russia, by RIA Novosti in the Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections website, 29 June 2006

External links

• The Blue Stream gas pipeline, Gazprom website