New Russian gas pipeline to Europe opens

Russia has started European gas deliveries through the new TurkStream pipeline to Turkey, Bulgaria’s Bulgartransgaz said on Sunday, as Moscow looks to reduce shipments via Ukraine.

Russia is building TurkStream and doubling the capacity of NordStream across the Baltic Sea to Germany as part of plans to bypass Ukraine in its gas deliveries to Europe.

“Russian gas deliveries not only for us but also for Greece and North Macedonia are being carried through the new entry point (at our Turkish border),” Bulgartransgaz CEO Vladimir Malinov told Bulgarian national radio BNR.

Russian gas producer Gazprom started shipping about 3 billion cubic meters of gas to Bulgaria via TurkStream on January 1, replacing a route that formerly passed through Ukraine and Romania.

Gazprom shipped about 3 billion cubic meters to Greece and about 5 billion cubic meters to North Macedonia via that route last year.

Malinov said that the TransBalkan pipeline was idle at present but added that it was made reversible and could be used for shipments to Romania, Moldova and Ukraine if there was demand.

“We have thus opened the route to access for LNG from the Greece’s LNG terminal Revithoussa up to Ukraine,” he said.

Russia is building TurkStream in two pipelines, each with an annual capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters.

The first pipeline is aimed at supplying Turkey and the second would run further from Bulgaria to Serbia and Hungary. Bulgaria hopes to be able to make shipments to Serbia by May and build the whole section by year-end.