The construction of the undersea section of the South Stream gas pipeline will begin in the spring of 2014, Bulgaria’s Economy Minister has confirmed.

“The contracts with the ports in Varna and Burgas have already been signed,” Economy and Energy Minister Dragomir Stoynev told reporters Friday.

Stoynev stated that the project would be beneficial for the Bulgarian economy, as it would help create thousands of jobs in EU’s poorest region.

“It is extremely important for us to stabilize and diversify our energy sector, as we are now entirely dependent on a single country for our supplies,” he said, as cited by BGNES.

The South Stream pipeline is intended to transport up to 63 billion cubic meters of natural gas to central and southern Europe, diversifying Russian gas routes away from transit countries such as Ukraine.

The pipes will go from Russia to Bulgaria via the Black Sea; in Bulgaria it will split in two – with the northern leg going through Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, and Slovenia to Austria and Northern Italy, and the southern leg going through Greece to Southern Italy.

In early December, the European Commission cautioned that the bilateral intergovernmental agreements on the South Stream gas pipeline project between Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Austria and Croatia had to be renegotiated in order to comply with EU law.

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