The pipeline has been constructed by the Blue Stream Pipeline, the Netherlands based joint venture of Russian Gazprom and Italian Eni with the intent of diversifying Russian gas delivery routes to Turkey and avoiding third countries. The Blue Stream Pipeline is an owner of the subsea section of pipeline, including Beregovaya compressor station, while Gazprom owns and operates the Russian land section of the pipeline and the Turkish land section is owned and operated by the Turkish energy company Botas.
Preparations of the pipeline project started in 1997 when Russia and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement on construction of the subsea pipeline. At the same time, Gazprom and Botas signed a 25-year gas sale contract. In February 1999, Gazprom and Eni signed the Memorandum of Understanding to implement the Blue Stream project.
The construction of the Russian land section took place in 2001-2002 and the offshore section in 2001-2002. The offshore section of the pipeline was built by Italian constructor Saipem and the Russian onshore section by Stroytransgaz, a subsidiary of Gazprom. Gas flows from Russia to Turkey started in February 2003.
Blue Stream has a full capacity of 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas per annum. Total length of the pipeline is 1,213 kilometres.
The pipeline uses pipes with different diameters: mainland section 1,400 mm, mountainous section 1,200 mm and submarine section 610 mm. The gas pressure in submarine section is 25 MPa.
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