The Russian Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko will meet Friday with his Bulgarian counterpart, Traicho Traikov, to discuss the “road map” for the South Stream gas pipeline project.

The meeting will be at the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna and will be a continuation of the discussions during the visit of Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Vikto Zubkov to Bulgaria two weeks ago.

A day after his visit, Zubkov announced that at this meeting, Bulgaria and Russia will sign the contract for the South Stream road map. However, Traikov has explained that this was not certain and that the contract will be discussed.

Durign his visit, Zubkov, who is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of Gazprom, and the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov have announced that the experts of the two sides are working on very clear-cut and specific “road maps” for the construction of the South Stream pipeline and the Belene Nuclear Plant.

According to the statement of the Bulgarian Minister of Economy, Energy, and Tourism Traicho Traikov, the greatest breakthrough achieved as a result of the meeting in the Bulgarian-Russian talks on South Stream has to do with the use of the existing Bulgarian gas pipeline network.

While the Russians originally demanded that there should be little new construction of South Stream on Bulgarian soil, and Bulgaria wanted brand new pipes running parallel to its existing domestic gas network, Borisov and Zubkov have hammered out a compromise entailing transiting part of the South Stream gas volumes through the Bulgarian pipes already in place.

Thus, a total of 17 billion cubic meters of the 63 billion to be transited annually through South Stream will go through the already existing Bulgarian pipeline network. The rest of the Russian gas destined for Italy and Central Europe will go through new pipes to be laid on Bulgarian territory in east-west direction.

Bulgaria’s Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov has explained that the country will not lose any transit fees by allowing the use of its domestic pipelines, and will actually raise them because this decision will allow increasing the South Stream transit capacity. At present, using these pipes, Bulgaria transits 17 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Greece and Turkey annually.

The newly-built pipes will be owned 50% by the Bulgarian government, and 50% - by the Gazprom consortium for the construction and operation of the future pipeline.

The South Stream gas transit pipeline is expected to be ready in 2015 and to transport Russian and Caspian gas through the Black Sea and Bulgaria to Italy and Central Europe. In Bulgaria it is supposed to split in two – to Greece and Southern Italy and to Northern Italy and Central Europe.

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