January 20, 2010, 02:17 / Business

The President of Transneft wants to combine two competing projects

Both projects have the same goal - to direct export flows from the Black Sea basin bypassing the overloaded Turkish Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. According to Transneft, 110 million tons of oil and 45 million tons of petroleum products are transported through them per year. Russia has been participating in the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project since 2007, although the start of its construction is unknown. And the country was going to join the construction of Samsun-Ceyhan only last year. In October, Rosneft and Transneft signed a protocol of mutual understanding with the participants in this project - Italy and Turkey.

Burgas - Alexandroupolis

Projected oil pipeline. Operator - Trans-Balkan Pipeline BV: 51% - from Gazprom Neft, Transneft and Rosneft (in equal shares), 24.5% - from the Project Company Burgas - Alexandroupolis BG (Bulgaria), 23 .5% - from Help-Trucky (Greece), 1% - from the Greek government. The cost is about 1 billion euros.

Samsun – Ceyhan

Oil pipeline under construction. Participants – Eni (Italy, 50%), Calik (Turkey, 50%). Cost: $4 billion.

Transneft President Nikolai Tokarev wants to combine two competing oil pipeline projects - Burgas - Alexandroupolis and Samsun - Ceyhan. “We <...> see a real prospect of unification,” Tokarev told the corporate magazine Oil Pipeline Transport, adding that this is already being discussed with Turkish, Italian and Greek partners. And the partners “reacted to the idea with interest.” Tokarev did not mention only Bulgaria, noting that it is, in principle, delaying in answering whether it needs Burgas - Alexandroupolis or not.

There are no economic reasons for merging the two projects, says Metropol analyst Alexey Kokin. “Russia has clearly made a choice in favor of Turkey due to the fact that it supported the South Stream gas pipeline project,” the expert believes, “and Tokarev’s current statement is nothing more than preparing the ground for the funeral of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project.”

The Russian participants in Burgas - Alexandroupoli did not comment on this, as well as on Tokarev’s idea. Representatives of investors Samsun-Ceyhan - Italian Eni and Turkish Calik did not respond to Vedomosti's requests.