While the intrigues of the Southern Gas Corridor played out amid a number of keen players, Russia had an intrigue of its own in the form of the so-called South Stream gas pipeline project, which Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced to the regional gas game in 2007 with the intention of preempting Nabucco.

South Stream was a project that would bypass troublesome Ukraine with a 900-km-long subsea pipeline across the Black Sea, make landfall in Bulgaria and, in the process, eliminate Europe’s need for the Southern Gas Corridor. Russia already has one subsea pipeline crossing the Black Sea, the 16 bcm/year-capacity Blue Stream, which makes landfall in northern Turkey.

South Stream was meant to retain and even boost Russia’s current grip on the market in southeastern Europe by reaching, eventually, a capacity of 63 bcm/year, and it would have passed through several countries through which Nabucco had been routed, ending at the Central Europe Gas Hub in Austria. When Nabucco failed in the SD2 bidding procedure, it looked like Russia had won the pot, but Moscow finally failed to push its way through EU regulations, particularly the one concerning third-party access. Under EU rules, one entity cannot own a pipeline and the gas that runs through it.

During a visit to Turkey in early December, President Putin announced that South Stream would not be built as proposed. The EU’s insistence that the project comply with its regulations, combined with the financial pressure that Russia is facing as a result of U.S. and EU sanctions over Ukraine, collapsing oil prices and the falling price of gas, plus the fact that gas demand has been declining in Europe, led Russia to change course and announce that a new pipeline project would be routed through Turkey.

Analysts also estimated that South Stream was carrying a hefty price tag of over $25 billion.

While Putin was in Turkey meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia’s Gazprom and Turkish pipeline operator Botas  signed a memorandum of understanding to build a new 63 bcm/year-capacity subsea gas pipeline across the Black Sea to Turkey.

The new plan, which remains far from being genuinely on the table, calls for the construction of the subsea section and another onshore pipeline, starting in northern Turkey and running to a point on the Turkey-Greece border, for delivery to the European market. As Turkey is not an EU member, Russia will not have to comply with EU regulations, and so European customers will be buying this supply of Russian gas at the Turkish border.

If this plan materializes, Turkey stands to see its coming status as a transit country enhanced, and it will benefit from an additional supply of Russian gas. Turkey already is importing from Russia around 30 bcm/year, or 60% of its gas imports, and may eventually import another 14 bcm/year through the new project.