Wintershall signed agreements on Sept. 16 with OAO Gazprom to take a 15% stake in the company in charge of developing the offshore part of the 940-km South Stream Pipeline Project.

The four, parallel pipelines will run through the Black Sea and connect European Union members in southeastern Europe directly with Russia.

The company -- South Stream Transport AG -- will develop, build and operate the South Stream project through the Black Sea. Companies with interests in the project company are now Gazprom (50%), Wintershall (15%), ENI (20%) and EDF (15%).

"Together with Gazprom and other European partners, we are already demonstrating with the Nord Stream Baltic Sea Pipeline how we can increase gas supply security in Europe. We are now working together to improve supply security in the southeastern EU member states," explained Dr. Harald Schwager, who is on BASF’s executive board of directors.

The objective of the South Stream project is to create a new means of transporting Russian natural gas to customers in southeastern and southern Europe as of 2015 at the earliest. It consists overall of three components: expansion of transport capacities in Russia to the Black Sea, construction of four parallel gas pipelines through the Black Sea with a planned total capacity of 63 billion cubic meters a year (2.2 trillion cubic feet), and further construction of the pipeline onshore to southern and central Europe.