South Stream
South Stream (Russian: Южный поток, romanized: Yuzhnyy potok; Bulgarian: Южен поток, romanized: Južen potok; Serbian: Јужни ток; Slovene: Južni tok; Hungarian: Déli Áramlat; Italian: Flusso Meridionale) is a canceled pipeline project to transport natural gas of the Russian Federation through the Black Sea to Bulgaria and through Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia further to Austria. It was never finished.
| South Stream | |
|---|---|
Route of South Stream; it was never built. | |
| Location | |
| Country | Russian Federation European Union Republic of Serbia |
| General direction | east–west |
| From | Russkaya compressor station near Anapa |
| Passes through | Black Sea Varna Pleven Zaječar Paraćin Gospođinci Bački Breg Hercegszántó Tornyiszentmiklós |
| To | Tarvisio, Italy Baumgarten an der March, Austria |
| General information | |
| Type | Natural gas |
| Partners | Gazprom Eni EDF Wintershall Naftna Industrija Srbije Srbijagas |
| Operator | South Stream Transport AG National project companies |
| Technical information | |
| Length | 2,380 km (1,480 mi) |
| Maximum discharge | 63 billion cubic metres per annum (2.2×1012 cu ft/a) |
| No. of compressor stations | 10 |
The project was found in non-compliance with the European Union's Third Energy Package legislation, which stipulates the separation of companies' generation and sale operations from their transmission networks. The Russian Government cancelled the project in 2014, seven years after the project was started.
It was seen as rival to the Nabucco pipeline project, which was abandoned in favor of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. Unlike South Stream, TAP is fully compliant with EU legislation by way of having obtained EU Third Party Access Exemption.
Construction of the Russian onshore facilities for the South Stream pipeline started in December 2012. The project was cancelled by Russia in December 2014 following obstacles from the European Union, the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, and the resulting imposition of European sanctions on Russia. The project has been replaced by other proposed ones Tesla pipeline and Turkish Stream. The latter, renamed as TurkStream, was approved and later completed, sending gas supplies to Bulgaria on 1 January 2020.