Russia Energy Minister Sets 2015 Deadline for South Stream

Russia's Energy Minister, Sergey Shmatko, will represent Russia at the Sofia energy forum “Natural Gas for Europe.” Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

The South Stream gas pipeline will begin functioning in 2015, Russia's Energy Minister, Sergey Shmatko, said Thursday.

Shmatko is quoted by the Russian information agency ITAR-TASS as saying that the text of the agreement is fully correlated between the parties and its signing could happen as early as April 27, during the official visit of Bulgaria's Prime Minister, Sergey Stanishev, to Moscow.

Bulgarian media published reports Wednesday saying that the "South Stream" agreement would not be signed during the Sofia energy forum "Natural Gas for Europe" as Russia expected and this was the reason why Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, decided to cancel his participation in the forum.

It was announced Thursday that Shmatko will represent Russia at the event in Sofia.

In an interview for the Serbian "Politika", on April 22, Shmatko says that the failure to agree on details about the "South Stream" agreement had put Putin's trip on hold.

The Belgrade based media further comments that Sofia expected high ranking representatives of 100 countries for the forum, but it was still unclear, who exactly was going to attend.