A member of the Italian parliament believes that the South Stream project meets mutual interests of the supplier and the consumer, and they equally depend on each other. In fact, despite the two countries being far apart, Italy is very interested in building the pipeline. The Russian-Italian project is intended to lay a gas pipeline on the Black Sea bed from Russia to Bulgaria. Then Russian gas will be transported through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia to northern Italy. It has been planned to build branch lines to Croatia and the Republic of Serbia in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

According to Gazprom, the cost of construction of the pipeline is estimated at about 16 billion euros. It has been planned to start construction in December and supply gas in 2015. The partners are planning to increase the supply to the full capacity of 63 billion cubic meters a year after five years. Here is an opinion from director of National Energy Institute Sergei Pravosudov concerning the project.

“The South Stream is a high capacity pipeline that can supply gas to a large part of Europe. The EU where gas production is sharply falling is planning to increase import. Concerning Russia, this project paves the way for increasing the supply of gas to Europe and reduces the dependency on transit through Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine has more than once tried to use this factor as a lever for putting pressure in the issue of lowering the gas price,” Sergei Pravosudov said.

Until recently, Bulgaria has actively discussed the format of the implementation of the project. However, a few days ago, Moscow and Sofia approved a protocol on ultimate investment solution. Soon after the signing of the document, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said that the South Stream would be advantageous to Bulgaria and entire Europe. According to him, the project will improve the economic situation in the country and will have a favorable impact on the continent’s energy supply situation. Russian experts agree with this. Here is an opinion from analyst of the Energy and Finance Institute Fund Sergei Kondratev.

“South Stream will help to meet a good demand and supply energy to Europe reliably because it has a strong resource base that the competitors don’t have. Gazprom is ready to supply a necessary volume of gas timely. To this end, gas fields in Western Siberia are now being developed,” Sergei Kondratev said.

Notably, European experts have started to talk about clear cut advantages of the South Stream over the Nabucco project. According to the plans of its initiators, the Nabucco project should supply the EU with Iranian, Turkmen and Algerian gas. However, the construction of the pipeline is being called in question because its preliminary costs are extremely high, and it’s unclear how to fill the pipeline. Moreover, instability in these countries has frightened European investors even though the project is actively supported by the EU and the US.