Gazprom, Italian Edison and Greek DEPA SA said that they negotiate Russian gas export to Greece and Italy through the third countries and along the Black Sea bottom. Presidents of three companies signed the memorandum on mutual understanding in Rome on Wednesday. Before the signing Aleksei Miller, Gazprom President, met with Federico Guidi, Minister of Economic Development of Italy. The ceremony has been also attended by Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Tsipras.
The goal of the memorandum is to use the southern route to export Russian gas to Europe. For this purpose the sides are going to use results of the works done by Edison and DEPA as a part of ITGI Poseidon project (Turkey-Greece-Italy), Gazprom reported. Revival of the project strengthens energy safety of Europe owing to emergence of an additional route of deliveries and turns Greece into a big corridor for deliveries of gas from various sources and routes, DEPA SA quoted Teodoros Kitsakos, Senior Executive Director, as saying.
Poseidon is an offshore part of the Southern Gas Corridor project from Turkey to Italy via Greece: it will pass along the Ionic Sea bottom and connect gas transportation systems of Greece and Italy. The partners of IGI Poseidon S.A. are Edison and DEPA on the parity basis. They have been discussing the project since 2005. It was planned to be used to export Azerbaijani gas to Italy via the Trans Anadolu gas pipeline (TANAP), but Trans Adriatic gas pipeline (TAP) has been chosen instead, reminded Aleksei Grivach, Deputy Director of the National Energy Security Fund.