A cooperative agreement for Greek Stream – the local segment of Turkish Stream, Russia’s latest pipeline proposal for natural gas supply to Europe via the south, from the Greek-Turkish border area – was signed today between Production Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak in St Petersburg.

The Greek energy minister also signed a joint declaration in support of the project – now officially named South European Pipeline – with Vladimir Dimitriev, chairman of Vnesheconombank-VEB, a Russian state-owned Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs.

Both sides pledged to support all legal means to facilitate the pipeline project’s development. A joint statement was released noting that “intensive work on the project will commence immediately, beginning with the preparation of a feasibility study, technical studies, and other preliminary planning work for the South European Pipeline.”

Lafazanis, along with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, traveled to St Petersburg for a series of meetings on the sidelines of yesterday’s International Economic Forum (SPIEF – 2015), hosted by the Russian city. They were joined by top officials of the state’s energy apparatus – the main power utility PPC’s CEO Manolis Panagiotakis; DEPA, the Public Gas Corporation’s boss Spyros Paleogiannis; and ELPE Hellenic Petroleum chief Grigoris Stergioulis – reportedly to explore the possibility of doing business with BRICS members.