Kazakhstan proposes delivering gas to Romania via an extension of the South Stream pipeline

Romania’s Prime Minister Victor Ponta recently made a visit to the Republic of Kazakhstan, where he met the Kazakh Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov and the President of KazMunaiGaz. During the meeting, new investment opportunities were among the discussion topics and the Kazakhs made the proposal to deliver gas from Kazakhstan to Romania, with an extension of the South Stream pipeline from Bulgaria to Romania being an option, according to a statement from the Romanian Government. This comes soon after news broke of the end of the Nabucco gas pipeline project, which would have included Romania as well. More about it here. Moreover, the partners from Kazakhstan have expressed openness and willingness to sign a contract for delivering uranium for the domestic consumption related to the nuclear units at Cernavoda, according to the same statement. During the meeting, the Romanian representatives proposed that the Kazakhstan partners “use more intensely the Oil Terminal in Constanta, but also the opening of some flights from Astana to Bucharest by the Kazakh airlines.” Also, the Kazakhstan officials invited Romania to take part with its own stand in the Astana 2017 exhibition. South Stream is a gas pipeline to transport natural gas from Russia through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and further to Greece, Italy and Austria. The South Stream gas pipeline designed capacity is 63 billion cubic meters per year, while the total length of the offshore pipeline section is 900 km. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com