SOCHI, September 16 (Itar-Tass) —— The South Stream integrated development project will be ready by the end of the first half of 2012, Gazpromexport CEO Alexander Medvedev told reporters in comment on the Friday signing of the South Stream shareholders agreement.
“A final investment decision based on the project, which will be ready by the end of the first half of 2012, will be next step,” he said.
Medvedev called unfounded and illogical the statement by European Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger, who had described South Stream and Nabucco as rivals. “South Stream and Nabucco are not rivals; they have different goals,” he said.
“We are diversifying the routes of the delivery of Russian gas under earlier contracts. We have the gas, the market, the contracts and the partners, while Nabucco’s goal is to diversify the sources of the supplies,” he said.
Russia does not take joy in the fact that the Nabucco project has not acquired gas resources, he said. “We take no joy in the hitherto unknown sources of Nabucco gas because Europe will have a gas deficit in the future,” he said.
Medvedev confirmed the estimated value of the South Stream sea segment at about $10 billion and said that the land segment would cost $5.5 billion. “The cost won’t grow much, it will be 15% more or less,” he said.