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South Stream

"South Stream" is a proposed natural gas pipeline that is to be built from Russia across the Black Sea to Bulgaria with terminals in Austria and Italy. It's completion date is projected to be 2015.

South Stream is competing with another pipeline, Nabucco, which is to be built along a parallel path—from Turkey through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria. There is a great deal of international political maneuvering over the two pipelines, since Nabucco is being supported by European countries seeking to reduce their dependence on Russian gas, while Russia is seeking to block Nabucco with its competing pipeline, South Stream.

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"Eni, the Italian utility, has formed a joint venture with Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, to build the South Stream gas export pipeline to southern Europe that will cost at least €10 billion (£7.2 billion). The pipeline will carry 30 billion cubic metres of Russian gas to Europe per year."

"Russia strengthened its grip on Europe's energy supplies on Friday as it signed a major gas deal with Bulgaria that analysts said would further undermine the European Union's attempts to diversify its energy sources.

"Under the agreement, the $15 billion South Stream pipeline will be built under the Black Sea, allowing Russia to send natural gas directly to Europe through Bulgaria and bypassing Turkey, which has been a crucial transit route for Russia's gas exports to European markets."

"For the moment, Kosovo relies on Serbia for much of its power and water. Despite the political hostility from Serbia and Russia, Ramadani believes business interests will prevail in the long term. He is hopeful that NIS, Serbia's former state-run oil refining group recently sold to Russia's Gazprom at a knockdown price, will sell its products to Kosovo.

"Gazprom could also help by routing its planned South Stream gas pipeline through Kosovo to Albania and across the Adriatic to Italy. 'This is in the hands of Putin,' he says. If Serbia does close the taps then that will be the price of freedom. 'People are willing to pay this price,' he tells Observer."

"Russia is set to reaffirm its support for Serbia when its likely next president, Dmitry Medvedev, visits Belgrade today. He is coming to sign an agreement to build part of the planned South Stream natural-gas pipeline through Serbia, and to seal the purchase of Serbia's national oil company, NIS, by OAO Gazprom, the Russian energy giant. But the timing is sure to be seen in the international community as a show of support for Belgrade.

"The tussle over Kosovo increasingly is focused on a small piece of Serb-dominated territory in the north of the province. Serbs have focused a series of protests on border posts between Kosovo and Serbia, in order to keep the border open. Serbs in the enclave have said they won't recognize Kosovo's independence and will continue answering to Belgrade."

"Moscow, not surprisingly, is pulling out all the stops to scuttle the project. It is seducing pliant politicians and resorting to old-fashioned bullying, especially in the states that Nabucco transits. It is acquiring stakes in European energy companies, often through questionable shell companies, that could complicate Nabucco's completion. It is buying up natural gas in Central Asia and the Caspian, even paying up to four times more than in previous years, to deny supplies to Nabucco. And it has proposed a rival pipeline, called South Stream, which would flow from Russia across the Black Sea to Bulgaria and the Balkans and fork, with one spur running west to Italy and the other north to Austria."

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