Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend S.Aliyev / Italy, Turkey and Greece will sign an agreement this week on constructing a pipeline to bring natural gas from central Asia to European markets by 2011, the Greek development minister, Dimitris Sioufas, said, AP reports. Dimitris Sioufas said he would travel to Rome to sign the deal.
"The project shows the strongly multilateral and extroverted energy policy of our country," Sioufas said after meeting with Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.
The pipeline network would include a 212-kilometer (132-mile) undersea connection from Greece to Italy, and is expected to carry 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year into Greece, most of it for re-export.
Azerbaijani gas from gas condensate field of Shah Deniz which is exported to Turkey via South Caucasus Pipeline may also be transported via this route. The capacity of the pipeline is 20 bln cu.m per year. .