Sofia and Moscow will set up next month a joint company that will operate the Bulgarian section of the future South Stream gas pipeline, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller said on Friday.
"We also agreed to sign next week an agreement on a feasibility study of the Bulgarian section of the pipeline, and to continue our joint work on it," Miller told reporters after a meeting with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Boirsov and Energy Minister Traycho Traykov in Sofia.
The South Stream, a joint project of Gazprom and Italy's Eni, is expected to carry 63 billion cubic metres of Russian natural gas per year under the Black Sea to Europe, starting in 2015.