Putin threatens to abandon Bulgaria-Greece pipeline project

Putin threatens to abandon Bulgaria-Greece pipeline project

	Published : Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:34 By : Agencies Print this Story

MOSCOW (AFX) - Russian president Vladimir Putin has threatened to abandon the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline project if Bulgaria and Greece do not sign an agreement quickly.

The pipeline would transport oil from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

'If our Greek and Bulgarian partners cannot solve problems on their side, we have no choice but to increase transit using territories in other countries,' Putin said during his annual press conference.

In this case, the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline 'will never be built' and 'Bulgaria and Greece will no longer have the chance to become transit countries for oil and gas from the Caspian sea to Europe,' Putin said.

The main consumers of oil from the Caspian sea 'are in Western Europe' and 'the European Union is surely extremely interested in this project being carried out,' said Putin.

'However, we see upheaval which is not in line with Bulgarian and Greek national interests,' he said.

The Burgas-Alexandropoulis pipeline, which would be 280 kilometres long and will cost 900 mln usd (709 mln eur), is intended to transport oil from the Caspian sea to Europe, bypassing the Bosporus Strait.

Up to 35 mln tonnes of oil per year has to be transported by boat to the Russian port of Novorossiysk to the Bulgarian port of Burgas before it is injected into the pipeline there.

Begun in 1993, the project initially faced problems with the distribution of shares in the construction consortium.

Last year, Bulgaria and Greece finally agreed to allow Russia to be the majority shareholder, in line with Moscow's demands.

At the end of January, the Bulgarian government announced that the three countries had reached an agreement on constructing the pipeline. The agreement was to be formally validated on Feb 7 in Burgas.

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