Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that the construction of South Stream Gas Pipeline will start by the end of the year.
"In December last year [...] Turkey approved the construction [of South Stream] in its exclusive economic zone and we received final permission from the Turkish government. We plan to begin [building] the pipeline at the end of the year," the state-run Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) quoted Putin as saying on Monday.
The South Stream pipeline, a joint project of Gazprom and Eni, is expected to carry 63 billion cubic metres of Russian natural gas per year under the Black Sea to the Bulgarian coast. Slovenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary and Greece are partners in the onshore section of the pipeline.