Russia's Gazprom and Bulgaria's National Energy Holding have come to an agreement on important construction and technological details of the Bulgarian section of the South Stream gas pipeline.

The agreement was signed in Sofia Monday during the visit of Gazprom's Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev to the Balkan country.

Medvedev told reporters that the gas pipeline will be operational in 2015. The construction of its underwater section is expected to be launched in December 2012, while the construction of the Bulgarian section will start in 2013.

Bulgaria has to make a make a final investment decision on the energy project by the November 15, 2012, it was also made clear on Monday.

According to Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Delyan Dobrev, Bulgaria will spend far less than the initially estimated BGN 1 B on the project.

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. Construction will start in December 2012, and not 2013 as previously planned.

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. Recent reports have indicated, however, that Russian energy giant Gazprom may give up on the construction of the offshore section of the South Stream gas pipeline to Austria.

The Black Sea underwater section of South Stream between Russia and Bulgaria will be 900 km long, and will be constructed at a maximum depth of 2 km.

In order to service the supplies for South Stream, Russia will expand its own gas transit network by building additional 2 446 km of pipelines with 10 compressor stations with a total capacity of 1473 MW, a project to be called "South Corridor" and to be completed in two stages by 2019.

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