Russian President Putin, GreekPremier Costas Karamanlis and Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev signed an interstate agreement in Athens on March 15 on construction of a 280-kilometer oil pipeline that will link the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Burgas with the Greek oil terminal at Alexandroupolis. Discussion of the project dates back to 1994, when
Turkey again announced restrictions on the passage of oil mega-tankers through the Turkish straits, but implementation has been delayed due to uncertainty whether enough crude will be available to render the project economically viable. Burgas is a shallow-water harbor, which limits the capacity of tankers it can accommodate. It is still unclear whether the pipeline will transport Kazakh as well as Russian crude. The pipeline has a throughput capacity of 35-50 million tons, and will be completed by 2010 at the earliest,
according to the "Financial Times." Construction costs are currently estimated at $1 billion, compared to $700 million in 2005 when the initial memorandum on construction was signed. Russia will have a 51 percent stake in the pipeline, while Greece and Bulgaria will each have 24.5 percent.
Source:
RFE/RL. Copyright (c) 2007. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
