Italy's Saipem signs contract to build South Stream

South Stream Transport has contracted the Italian company Saipem for the construction of the first of four lines of the South Stream Offshore Pipeline.

The value of this contract exceeds EUR 2 billion, the news agency Prime cites Russia's Gazprom, the largest shareholder of South Stream Transport, as saying.

Saipem is to prepare working papers and build the first line of the South Stream Offshore Pipeline as well as technological facilities on the coasts of the Black Sea.

The first line of this gas pipeline should be put into operation in 2015, while commercial gas deliveries to Europe are expected to start in the first quarter of 2016. According to the plan, the full capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of gas a year should be achieved in 2018. South Stream will connect Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy, Prime reminds.