Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin chat prior talks in Athens. Putin was set to sign Thursday a long-delayed agreement with Greece and Bulgaria to build a 900-million-dollar pipeline to carry Russian oil from the Black Sea to the Aegean
Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to sign Thursday a long-delayed agreement with Greece and Bulgaria to build a 900-million-dollar pipeline to carry Russian oil from the Black Sea to the Aegean.
The signature of the agreement with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and Bulgarian PM Sergey Stanishev will bring to an end 14 years of talks on building the 280 kilometre-long (175 mile) pipeline between the Bulgarian port of Burgas and the port at Alexandroupolis in Greece.
The pipeline project has been repeatedly delayed, most notably because the Russians doubted whether it made economic sense.
But soaring oil prices and the inauguration in July of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, linking the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean while bypassing Russia, prompted Bulgaria, Greece and Russia to speed up the signing of the deal.
"This project will boost Europe's energy security and reduce the environmental risks linked to the traditional (marine) transport of hydrocarbons in the region," a Kremlin source said this week.
Work on the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline is expected to begin next year and last 18 months.
Once completed, the pipeline will be able to transport between 35 and 50 million tonnes of Russian oil per year.
A Russian consortium of the Transneft, Rosneft and Gazprom energy companies will hold a 51 percent stake in the pipeline, while Greek and Bulgarian companies will split the remainder.
Putin, who arrived in Greece on Wednesday evening, was accompanied by the Russian ministers for foreign affairs and energy.
Before arriving in Greece, Putin had been in Italy for talks that also centred on energy issues. The Russian leader was to leave Athens Thursday afternoon.
Smells like an Orthodox alliance to me.
