Russian gas pipeline to be built before EU's Nabucco project: minister

"South Stream has every chance of being realized before Nabucco," Shmatko was quoted as saying by the Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies.

"We will start implementing this project very soon," he added.

The South Stream pipeline project is being led by Russian energy giant Gazprom and Italy’s Eni and would run under the Black Sea delivering gas to Europe.

The project is widely seen as a rival to Nabucco, a pipeline backed by the EU that would take gas from the Caspian region through Turkey towards Austria, bypassing Russian territory.

The EU has promoted Nabucco as a way to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and to avoid another disruption like Januarys gas crisis, when a price dispute between Russia and Ukraine cut supplies to over a dozen European countries.

But Moscow has repeatedly criticized Nabucco and experts have questioned whether there is enough gas to supply the ambitious pipeline project.

Last week, Gazprom and Eni agreed to increase South Stream’s capacity to 63 billion cubic meters a year from 31 billion, in a meeting attended by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi.