Transgaz Denies Talks With Gazprom On Involving Romania In South Stream Proj

"Transgaz contradicts the latest media news according to which the participants in last week’s Moscow meeting would have discussed about replacing Bulgaria with Romania in the South Stream project," the company announced Tuesday in a press release.

Gazprom takes into consideration the possibility to include Romania in the South Stream project, replacing Bulgaria, a state that creates difficulties and delays the construction of the gas pipe, according to sources quoted by Russian Kommersant daily, AFP reported Monday.

The problem with Bulgaria was one of the issues discussed last Friday between the Gazprom head Alexei Miller, the Romanian ambassador in Russia, Francisc Toth, the general manager of Romgaz Medias, Romania’s largest gas producer, and Ioan Rusu, the general manager of Transgaz Medias, the operator of gas pipe network in Romania, according to some sources quoted by the Russian daily.

South Stream is a project estimated at EUR10 billion, led by Russian Gazprom and Italy’s ENI, aiming to construct a gas pipe for the delivery of Russian natural gas towards Europe.

Gazprom has already inked deals with Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Hungary for the development of the South Stream project. Slovenia and Austria might as well participate in the project.

Analysts say that South Stream, with an annual gas transport capacity of 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas, is a modality to increase Russia’s domination over the gas deliveries towards Europe.

On October 16, officials in Transgaz and Romgaz met in Moscow with Gaprom’s president Alexei Miller and the general manager of Gapromexport, Alexander Medvedev.

"The direct natural gas imports from Gazprom, the underground gas storage in Romania and the extension of the collaboration between the two companies as regards the transit of the Russian gas through Romania were the issues discussed during the Moscow meeting," Transgaz added.