MOSCOW, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- The planned South Stream natural gas pipeline for Europe is moving ahead as planned, executives from Russia's Gazprom and Italy's ENI announced.
Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller met with ENI CEO Paolo Scaroni in Moscow to discuss bringing French company EDF and Germany's Wintershall in as shareholders for a venture tasked with building the offshore section of South Stream.
The South Stream pipeline would split in two with arteries headed to Greece and the Balkans after passing through the Turkish waters of the Black Sea.
"The parties expressed a unanimous opinion that the project (South Stream) was progressing in strict compliance with the prescribed deadline," ENI said in a statement.
Disputes between Ukraine and Russia prompted Gazprom to look for new routes to deliver gas to European customers. Ukraine hosts 80 percent of pipelines carrying Russian gas bound for European consumers.
The news comes as Gazprom announced it was filling its Nord Stream pipeline to Germany with so-called buffer gas. Nord Stream is viewed as a northern European counterpart to South Stream.
South Stream would carry roughly 2.2 trillion cubic feet of gas per year when it goes into service by 2015.
