Russia isn’t considering merging Nabucco with the South Stream

Russia isn’t considering merging Nabucco with the South Stream gas pipeline, Russia’s Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said.

This was a respond to Paolo Scaroni, chief executive officer of Italy’s Eni SpA, Gazprom’s partner in South Stream, who last week proposed to merge two projects. In particular, he said combining the two pipeline projects would save time and money.

“It seems to me that the South stream project is highly competitive; we’ve got both agreements and gas. And we’re waiting for time, when the Nabucco project will be able to compete with us,” said Shmatko.

The South Stream pipeline project is intended to transport Russian natural gas across Europe via Bulgaria to Italy. The project, which is reported to be built by 2013, is considered as a strong rival to the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline for competitive supplies. The South Stream will cross the Black Sea from the Russian coast of Beregovaya (starting point of the Blue Stream pipeline where a compressor station is sited) to the Bulgarian coast at Varna, with a 900km pipeline reaching a maximum water depth of 2,000m.