“In a short time, trilateral meetings involving Turkey, Russia and Israel will start. With the Blue Stream II pipeline, natural gas will be delivered to Turkey and the Middle East market. The region is important politically, not only economically,” Alexander Medvedev, who also leads Gazprom's export arm Gazprom Export, said in a speech delivered on Thursday at the 24th World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires.
The Blue Stream pipeline presently runs from Russia to Turkey under the Black Sea. The proposed Blue Stream II is expected to expand output capacity by 10 billion cubic meters per year. Russia and Turkey expect Turkey's gas consumption to rise exponentially in the coming years and have committed to working toward ensuring supply demands are met. Blue Stream II is being touted as a potentially significant contribution to these efforts. Last month, Gazprom's Medvedev said that although a consensus on Blue Stream II had been reached at the political level, this project was still in its initial phases and that the two sides would soon commence detailed negotiations.
During a visit to Israel last month, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, also chairman of the board of Gazprom, said the Greek Cypriot administration and some other countries might also be included in the project so that it could become more productive.
