Russia's state owned energy giant Gazprom will build a 63 billion cubic meter capacity natural gas pipeline to Turkey, bypassing Ukraine, said the company's CEO, Anadolu agency reported.
Russia cancelled the construction of South Stream Natural Gas Pipeline, said Aleksey Miller, CEO of Gazprom, in a written statement on Monday.
Miller said that the 14 bcm capacity of the new pipeline will replace Ukrainian transit natural gas.
The pipeline will bring 50 bcm natural gas to an energy hub which will be built on the Turkey-Greece border. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Monday that Turkey and Russia have signed a memorandum of understanding to build the hub.
The beginning point of the new pipeline will be Russkaya Station, same as the South Stream project.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced, during his visit to Turkey, that halting the South Stream construction was down to not reaching a deal with Bulgaria. "We will not start the construction of the project on Black Sea. It is not logical to construct all the pipeline and stop when reaching the border of Bulgaria," Putin said.
The Russian president accused the European Union over the cancellation of the project. "If the EU does not want this project, we will cancel it. That means Europe will not benefit from Russian gas. We will distribute our natural gas to other world markets by pipelines and in the form of liquefied natural gas," he said.