BRUSSELS, May 14 (RIA Novisti) – The EU has no plans to extend the Southern Gas Corridor from Azerbaijan as an alternative to Russian pipelines, Eurogas President Jean-Francois Cirelli told RIA Novosti Wednesday.
“There will be no additional network, the current network is well functioning, we do not need to build something new in this part of Europe, there is a lot of pipes going north in particular so there will be no need,” Cirelli told RIA Novosti on the sidelines of an international conference on EU-Russian energy cooperation in Brussels.
He added that the current volumes of Russia’s gas supplies to Europe are impossible to completely substitute by other sources, explaining that they “are not an alternative” as “it is important for Europe to try many different sources of gas.”
Last month, Russian newspaper Vedomosti published a report suggesting that Europe is considering plans to extend the Southern Gas Corridor via Azerbaijan.
The South Stream gas pipeline is proposed to cross the Black Sea to ship Russian gas to South and Central Europe. For the onshore sections, Russia has signed intergovernmental agreements with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia and Croatia.
The construction of South Stream began in 2012 near the Russian city of Anapa, with the first gas to pass through the pipeline in the first quarter of 2016, before becoming fully operational in 2018.
