Bulgaria will be worth "half of Ukraine" in terms of transit routes for Russian natural gas after the South Stream pipeline is completed.

This has been stated Tuesday by Sergey Kupriyanov, Spokesperson of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, as quoted by BGNES.

When asked if the gas to be transited through Bulgaria would come from Russia or from Central Asia, Kupriyanov said it would natural gas owned by Gazprom.

In his words, the other pipeline projects in the so called Southern Gas Corridor were not competitive to South Stream because they did not entail the transportation of Russian gas.

Kupriyanov made it clear Gazprom still wanted to use the existing Bulgarian pipeline network as part of the South Stream transit pipeline. "It is unfeasible to build two pipes along the same route," he said.

Yet, the Gazprom spokesperson did point out that the company intended to rent the existing pipes rather than ask Bulgaria to give up its sovereignty over them.

Kupriyanov predicted that in 2010 the average price of 1 000 cubic meters of gas would reach USD 418. This is compared to an average price of USD 280-285 for 1 000 cubic meters in 2009.

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