VIENNA, June 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Austria’s OMV, an oil and gas company, has called on the European Union to speed up the implementation of the South Stream project.

Gerhard Roiss, OMV CEO, said on Tuesday the European Union should not have rolled back negotiations on the South Stream project, but add momentum to the process instead.

On Monday, Guenther Oettinger, the European Union Commissioner for Energy, told Itar-Tass that negotiations between the European Union and Russia on South Stream would be resumed at the earliest possible opportunity. He said that the European Commission planned to discuss with the Russian side its plans about the lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the EU third energy package. According to Oettinger, the European Commission could back Russia’s South Stream project when breaches in the European laws were cured.

Russia’s Gazprom gas giant sees the South Stream project as a means to diversify natural gas supplies to Europe and to reduce dependence on transit countries. South Stream Transport B.V. is an international joint venture set up to do the planning and construction works and to operate the seabed pipeline to be laid across the Black Sea. Gazprom’s share in the company is 50%, Italy’s Eni holds a 20% stake, France’s EDF — 15% and Germany’s Wintershall Holding GmbH — also 15%

The seabed section of the South Stream pipeline will run across the Black Sea bottom from the Russkaya compressor station in Russia to the Bulgarian coast at Varna. The overall length of the Black Sea section is more than 900 kilometers. The maximum depth is more than two kilometers. The section’s designed capacity is 63 billion cubic meters. The pipeline was planned to be commissioned in late 2015.