Italian Companies 'Eyeing Turkish Stream'

There are Italian companies showing interest in the construction of both Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream, Russia's Deputy PM Arkadiy Dvorkovich has said.

"This is no secret, the company Saipem is taking part in the respective procedures carried out by Gazprom on Nord Stream and Turkish Stream," TASS quotes him as saying.

Turkish Stream is a gas pipeline project announced by Russian energy giant Gazprom as an alternative to South Stream (which would have supplied Central Europe with Russian gas via Bulgaria) in the winter of 2014. Construction was given the green light by Turkey in September, calling into question the chances for South Stream to be revived.

Turkish Stream was initially designed to have four threads, each with a capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters (matching that of South Stream, which was projected at 63 bcm), but an agreement was only reached on building two of them initially.

Saipem, a subsidiary of Italian holding Eni, was also involved in South Stream, but pulled out after the demise of the project.

Nord Stream-2, for its part, is a controversial project that consists of a pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea and which is expected to be operational in 2019. Several EU member states have raised concerns over the project, which they do not deem compatible with the union's so-called Third Energy Package.

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