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Russia is considering soon giving Greece funds based on future profits Athens would earn from shipping Russian gas to Europe as part of an extension of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project, a Greek government official said. Plans for the pipeline taking Russian gas from Turkey to Europe via Greece would be linked to lower Russian gas prices, the official added. Greece would pay back the Russian prepayment after the pipeline started operating, the official said.

Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East, Antalya Mayor Menderes Turel said this week... "We are talking about a global energy project, which would be a very important engine of peace in the region," Turel said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. Turel, who was here to take part in an International Conference of Mayors held in Jerusalem, said that the grandiose project had received tentative...

Moscow (AFP) - Russia's Gazprom giant on Wednesday urged the European Union to link up to its planned energy pipeline to Turkey or lose the gas that now transits Ukraine. Gazprom chief Alexei Miller reminded the new European Commissioner for Energy Union, Maros Sefcovic that the South Stream project to deliver gas to Europe through Ukraine has been scrapped. Hence, "the Turkish Stream is the only route along which 63 billion cubic metres of Russian gas can be supplied, which at present transit Ukraine. There are no other options," he said...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan celebrated booming trade relations between the two Cold War foes during Kremlin talks in which the two struck new energy and military agreements. Putin -- who invited Erdogan for a private dinner at his lavish suburban Moscow estate Monday evening -- told the Turkish prime minister that economic ties were growing by the best possible scenario as old tension wanes. Erdogan, accompanied by a swarm of 600 businessmen, was paying a return visit to Moscow after Putin in December became the first Moscow leader to appear to...

ANKARA - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says Turkey and Russia have agreed to extend a contract on natural gas supplies. The current agreement is scheduled to end in 2012. A proposed new pipeline, Blue Stream 2 is expected to meet TurkeyÂ’s growing need for natural gas The prime ministers of Turkey and Russia agreed over the weekend to strengthen the countriesÂ’ energy cooperation and begin negotiations over the Blue Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline project. The announcement came Saturday at a televised joint press conference held by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in the...

Russian energy giant Gazprom issued a brief statement on June 29 which actually touches on many political problems in the greater geography surrounding Turkey. It said that the company is ready to send more gas to Turkey if necessary, but from 2018 on Turkey could ask help from Azerbaijan as well. Reuters got it right when it called the statement a threat; a threat to both Turkey and Azerbaijan. The date the Russian company named, 2018, is the planned completion date for the TANAP (Trans-Anatolian) pipeline, which will carry Azerbaijani natural gas to Europe, a $7 billion project which was...

Turkey's energy minister has declared a gas pipeline a "peace corridor" linking the Caucasus with the Balkans. "We open the project as a peace corridor that is the result of 15 years hard work by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Through the South Caucasus pipeline and its backbone, the Trans-Anatolia pipeline, we connect the Caucasus with the Balkans. I wish every country could understand the true value of these projects and contribute with us," Taner Yıldız said while speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony of the South Caucasus pipeline in Baku on Sept. 20. The minister said energy security "ranks as one of...