Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly Gazprom says it will establish a company to build a gas pipeline to Turkey, days after President Vladimir Putin announced the new project.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kuprianov said in a statement on December 8 that the company will be registered in St. Petersburg and will be called "Gazprom Russkaya."
Putin said last week that Russia was dropping the South Stream project and was instead planning to build a pipeline to Turkey.
Putin also said Russia could set up a natural gas distribution hub on the Turkish-Greek border to supply Europe with gas.
The new pipeline across the Black Sea to Turkey would have an annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters of gas.
Some 14 billion cubic meters of gas would be sold to Turkey, with the rest -- up to about 50 billion cubic meters -- to be stored at the proposed distribution hub on the border between Turkey and Greece.
Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and TASS
