Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom has enough funds to build the first line of the planned Turkish Stream gas pipeline under the bed of the Black Sea, Gazprom Chief Financial Officer Andrei Kruglov said yesterday. He said at a press conference that Gazprom had yet to decide whether to build the first line, which will have a capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters a year, with partners or alone. Kruglov said Gazprom is one of the companies that produce natural gas with minimum costs, and that their costs will decrease even further this year. Kruglov added that the cost per thousand cubic meters of natural gas was below $38 in 2014, and they are expecting this number to drop below $30 per thousand cubic meters this year. Gazprom produced 444 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2014. Kruglov's announcement came after receiving the necessary permission from the Turkish government for Russian engineers to conduct engineering surveys for the offshore part of the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline project. Ankara approved the surveys, to be conducted within the exclusive economic zone and territorial waters of Turkey, in order to begin building the first offshore segment of the gas pipeline. Turkish Stream's offshore section will consist of four pipelines and each part will have a capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas. Turkish Stream will have a total capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. It will deliver 47 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe, while the remaining amount will be allocated for Turkey's domestic use.
