Russia will guarantee equal access of oil companies to the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline project.

The pipeline will pass through EU’s territory and union laws guarantee the free access to transport facilities Nikolai Seryogin, representative of the Russian Bourgas-Alexandroupolis Pipeline Consortium said.

According to Seryogin the Russian-British joint venture TNK-BP, the US giant Chevron and Kazakhstan's KazMunayGas were interested in the project.

The 280km long pipeline will transport Russian oil through Bulgaria’s port of Bourgas to the Greek Alexandroupolis. The pipeline will bypass the Turkish Bosporus Strait, which is overcrowded and causes major losses to oil companies.

Project execution can reach up to one billion euro, Russian news agency RIA Novosti said.

Bulgaria, Greece and Russia signed the agreement for the pipeline construction on March 15 2007 after 14 years of negotiations. The countries divided respectively 24.5, 24.5 and 51 per cent of the project shares between themselves.

Seryogin said that he hoped that Russian state-owned company Transneft will be selected as project operator.