A decision to redirect the flow of natural gas to Europe, bypassing Ukraine, from 2019 has already been made. The chairman of the Gazprom gas company’s board of directors, Viktor Zubkov, announced this at the European Gas Conference in Vienna on 28 January, the Ukrinform news agency reports, citing Deutsche Welle.
According to him, the decision to bypass Ukraine and transport Russian gas via the Turkish Stream gas pipeline was made by the senior political leadership.
According to Russia's National Energy Security Fund (NESF), the volume of transit of Russian gas through Ukraine reduced by one third in 2014, as a result of which Kiev lost about USD 1 billion. According to the fund, the volume of transit of Russian gas was 58.8 billion cubic meters in 2014. It reduced by 25 billion cubic meters compared with the previous year.
However, according to Ukraine’s Ukrtransgaz company, the volume of transit of Russian gas reduced by 28% to 62.2 billion cubic meters last year, and 59.4 billion cubic meters was transported to European countries.
Asked about the fate of the South Stream gas pipeline, the head of "Gazprom said that the "the project is closed" and that the Turkish Stream pipeline "is the only route via which the 63 billion cubic meters of Russian gas that is currently transported on transit through Ukraine can be delivered."
At the same time, according to Western media reports, Putin's plan to supply gas to Europe via Turkey is unlikely to be implemented because Russia risks losing a lot of money by trying to implement this project. The Turkish energy minister said earlier that Ankara had no plans to participate in financing the construction of the offshore segment of the pipeline from Russia and could assume only the cost of the onshore segment.
