Russian energy minister recommends European partners to launch construction of gas hub infrastructure on Turkey-Greece border right away

MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak has recommended European partners to launch the construction of gas hub infrastructure on Turkey-Greece border right away. “We assume that the transit agreement [on gas transit to Europe through Ukraine] terminates in 2019, gas will be supplied to European consumers via Turkey-Greece border,” Novak said at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday. “The European Commission and consuming countries need to shortly agree on their own infrastructure development, so that the European consumers will properly receive gas. We think that this work should be done in the shortest possible time as it takes years to implement this kind of big projects, and the work should be started [right away] so that the gas is received in the mid-term,” he said. Earlier Gazprom CEO Aleksei Miller said that the Turkish stream pipeline, which has been agreed on by Moscow and Ankara in December 2014, “is the only route for future supplies of 63 billion cubic meters of Russian gas that are currently piped via Ukraine.” It will help cut risks from transit of hydrocarbons through Ukraine, Miller added. Read more