OREANDA-NEWS. November 20, 2007. In the border areas of Turkey and Greece a flourish was held dedicated to commissioning of the gas pipeline, connecting the gas systems of the two countries. 

Present at the ceremony were Prime Minister of Turkey T. Erdogan, Prime Minister of Greece K. Karamanlis, as well as President of Azerbaijan I. Aliev and USA Energy Secretary S. Bodman.  Prime Ministers of the two countries announced successful completion of the first joint energy project and started out the pipeline through which transportation of gas from Turkey to Greece had been launched.

This event also meant starting of operation of the gas pipeline section from Alexandroupolis to Komotini, constructed by OAO Stroytransgaz in the territory of Greece in 2006-2007 to link the gas systems of the two countries. The length of this gas pipeline is 54 km and diameter is 36”. In the flat terrain the pipeline runs through the sections with high level of ground waters that created difficulties during construction. Six road and railway road crossings, as well as one crossing with concrete water pipeline were carried out by way of horizontal directional drilling. The Project also included construction of three valve stations and one pig receiver.

In the near future the gas pipeline that links Turkey and Greece will be extended throughout the whole of Greece along the bottom of the Adriatic Sea to Italy. Its total length will make over 600 km, and capacity will be up to 11.6 bcm  per year. At the initial stage of transporting gas to Italy through the territory of Greece it is supposed to use the already existing 24”, 218 km gas pipeline Karperi-Kavala-Komotini that was also constructed with participation of OAO Stroytransgaz in 1996-2000. 

Altogether, apart from already mentioned gas pipelines Alexandroupolis-Komotini and Karperi-Kavala-Komotini, OAO Stroytransgaz constructed the High Pressure Branch Pipelines to Keratsini, Volos, Inofita, Lavrio and Thessaloniki with total length of over 450 km.