Gazprom Delivers First Billion Bcm of Gas Through Turkstream Pipeline

Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom has supplied the first billion cubic meters of natural gas over the TurkStream gas pipeline, the company said on Monday, according to Vedomosti.

“About 54% of this volume were delivered to the Turkish gas market and around 46% — to the Turkish-Bulgarian border,” the company says.

Commercial deliveries over the pipeline started on January 1, 2020. The presidents of Russia and Turkey held the official opening ceremony of the TurkStream pipeline on January 8 in Istanbul.

The throughput capacity of the 930-km long gas pipeline is 31.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The first line with the capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas is intended for consumers in Turkey and the other one for Southern and Southeastern European nations.

It is planned for the Bulgarian gas network to be expanded and connected to a new pipeline in Serbia to bring Russian gas via TurkStream up to the Serbia-Hungary border.

TurkStream was designed by Gazprom as a pipeline to bring gas to Turkey and southeast Europe without having to transit via Ukraine.

When the project was officially inaugurated on January 8, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that TurkStream and the existing Blue Stream gas link via the Black Sea combined mean “the road is now open for direct, transit-free deliveries of all Gazprom’s gas which Turkey needs.”