Russia to go ahead with Trans-Balkan Pipeline project
19 March 2012
Russia is determined to build the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, in spite of Bulgaria's withdrawal from the project. This was confirmed by Trans-Balkan Pipeline consortium advisory board member Mikhail Barkov to ITAR-TASS.
Russia is determined the Trans-Balkan Pipeline should be built
The agreement to build the oil pipeline was signed in 2008, but at the end of 2011 Bulgaria pulled out of the project, which envisages a pipeline from the Bulgarian port of Burgas into Greece, supplied by tankers from Russian Black Sea ports.
The approximate total length of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline route is 300 km and throughput capacity initially around 35 million metric tons per annum (MMTA), with a further increase up to 50 MMTA possible at a later date.
In the interview, Barkov stated that the pipeline will benefit not only Bulgaria and Greece, but the whole of Europe, as it provides another conduit to bring oil from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.