Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov told journalists on October 9 that it was not true that the start of construction of the gas pipeline South Stream, the project pipeline that would pump gas from Russia to Italy, was to be delayed, thus rejecting  a report in Russian business daily Vedomosti, which reported on October that the launch of South Stream would be delayed by two years to 2015.

Bulgarian Energy Holding and the Russian company Gazprom would sign an agreement for a pre-project survey on South Stream by end-October, Dimitrov said. During the first three months of 2009 the shareholders agreement between two enterprises would also be signed.

“There is no delay at all but exactly the opposite – we will hold on to the memorandum signed on January 18 in the presence of the presidents of Bulgaria and Russia,” Dimitrov said.

The pipeline was due to begin operations in 2013, Gazprom chairperson Aleksey Miller said in January 2008, but a strategy paper outlining the development of the gas industry, obtained by Vedomosti, stipulated that South Stream would begin pumping gas at its initial capacity in 2015.

By 2024, it would reach its full capacity of 31 billion cu m of gas annually. The exact date of the launch would be clear after the detailed business plan is compiled, an unnamed company source quoted by Vedomosti said. Gazprom, which owns the project together with Italy's Eni, plans to finish the business plans for each individual country that the pipeline will pass through in the third quarter of 2009, the newspaper said.

Russia has already secured agreements with Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary for the transit of the gas pipeline.