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The TRANSGAS route (also spelled: Transgaz ; Cyrillic: Трансгаз) is a route of high-pressure natural gas pipelines from Ukraine through Slovakia and the Czech Republic to Austria and Germany.

The route primarily served to transport long-distance gas from Russia and the former Soviet Union. When it was built in 1970–1973, the route was the first and for more than 25 years the only major transit pipeline for supplying Western and Central Europe from the rich natural gas reserves of Siberia and Central Asia.

Planning and construction
The Soviet Union (USSR) began building pipelines in the 1960s to supply natural gas to its western parts, the largest of which was the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The lines were to be continued to the west in order to also supply the USSR's allies in the Warsaw Pact, the " Socialist Brother Countries " ČSSR and GDR, with energy. The first major route was the “Brotherhood” pipeline, which runs from the Siberian Urengoy gas field east of Nadym over a distance of around 4500 km to Uzhhorod in the Ukraine.

The planning and construction of the Transgas route, which connects to the Brotherhood route to the west, dates back to the end of the 1960s, when the East-West conflict entered a phase of relaxation and increasing dialogue. The USSR was already negotiating with Western states and companies about natural gas deliveries in the run-up to the Eastern treaties : After negotiations with the Italian company ENI failed in 1967, a contract was successfully concluded with the Austrian ÖMV in the following year, 1968, and discussions were also held with West Germany. In the German-Soviet natural gas pipe contract in 1970, the supply of gas to the German Thyssen-Ruhrgas was promised in return for natural gas pipes.

In the first phase from 1971 to 1973, the entire length of the route was prepared and pipes with a nominal diameter of DN 1200 until the branch to Austria and DN 900 continued to the East and West German borders. In order to expand capacity, additional parallel lines were laid on the same route in several construction phases in the following years, and a new branch of the route was planned and built as a shortcut in what would later become the Czech Republic.

The operator of the Czechoslovakian pipeline network was the company Tranzitní plynovod Praha, founded in 1971 and known internationally under the abbreviation Transgas.

Czech-Slovak division and privatization
After the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the Czechoslovak gas pipeline network and thus also the transit pipeline were divided:

The Czech part of the pipeline fell to ČPP Transgas, a subsidiary of the Czech gas supplier České plynárenské podniky (ČPP). In 2001, the state-owned company was privatized and the German energy supplier RWE took over the majority shareholding. In 2006, as part of unbundling in accordance with EU requirements, the transmission system operator RWE Transgas Net was spun off from RWE Transgas, which has been operating under the name Net4Gas since 2010.

The Slovak part of the Transgas network was operated from 1993 by Slovtransgaz, a largely autonomous subunit of the Slovak gas utility Slovenský plynárenský priemysel (SPP). After privatization in 2002 and unbundling in 2006, this initially became SPP-preprava, which was renamed eustream in 2008.

Disputes and construction of alternative routes
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, which gave Ukraine political independence from Russia, increasing disagreements developed between the two countries over the appropriate compensation that Ukraine should receive for the passage of Russian gas to the Transgas pipeline. From 2005 onwards, the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute culminated several times in the Ukrainian side sharply reducing the quantity transmitted, whereupon the Russian side temporarily stopped deliveries.xxxxxxxxxxx

In order not to be completely dependent on the Transgas route - and thus on the transit countries, especially Ukraine - Russia looked for alternative options and planned several alternative routes. As early as 1997, the alternative JAMAL route was completed north of the Transgas route, through Belarus and Poland. Despite these alternatives, the majority (around three quarters) of Russian gas continued to flow to Western Europe via the Transgas route. In 2007, there were disputes between Russia and Belarus over the route through this route. The third route, the Nord Stream route through the Baltic Sea, was completed in 2011. The completion of a parallel Nord Stream II route has been completed, but will not be operational until further notice due to the Russian attack on Ukraine (as of May 2022).

An alternative route was also planned south of the Transgas route, the South Stream line across the Black Sea and the Balkans. This project has now been discontinued; the reason for the discontinuation was the EU's third energy package, which envisages the unbundling of supplier and pipeline operator, as well as the changed political situation following the annexation of Crimea by Russia, which violated international law. Other routes in the south, which are not or only partially intended for the transit of Russian gas to Western Europe, are the Blue Stream, White Stream and Nabucco routes (also now discontinued).xxxxxxxxx

Ukraine
Three major routes for Russian gas converge in the west of Ukraine: The “Brotherhood” route (Bratstvo) comes from the north of Siberia, from the Urengoy gas field. Also from the Siberian north, from the Yamal Peninsula, comes a branch of the Yamal-Europe route (YAMAL for short) via Belarus. The third route, “ Unity ” (SOYUZ), comes from the southern, Central Asian part of Russia near Orenburg near the border with Kazakhstan.

After merging, the three pipeline routes intersect at a compressor station south of Uzhhorod (48.52587°N, 22.29512°W) the Ukrainian-Slovak border.

Slovakia
The Transgas pipeline begins behind the Slovakian border at the Veľké Kapušany compressor station Kapušany]] (48.53201°N, 22.06947°W). After another branch of the YAMAL line from Poland was added shortly behind the border, the pipeline runs via compressor stations at Jablonov nad Turňou (48.58004°N, 20.66425°W), Veľké Zlievce (48.17845°N, 19.46846°W) and Ivanka pri Nitre (48.21627°N, 18.10414°W) through the south of Slovakia. In the west of Slovakia, near Plavecký Peter Peter (48.54636°N, 17.31591°W), the line branches into a northern and a southern route. The southern one closes at the Slovakian-Austrian border, near Baumgarten an der March March]] (48.31661°N, 16.8756°W), to the Trans Austria Gasleitung (TAG). The northern one crosses behind the Brodské station (48.69818°N, 17.02683°W) crosses the Slovakian-Czech border river March by bridge.

Czech Republic
Behind the border begins with the station Lanžhot the Czech part of the route. A few kilometers further, near Břeclav, there is a connection to the STORK II distribution network coming from Poland ( Cieszyn ).

South of Brno, near Malešovice, xxxxxxxxxxthe Transgas pipeline splits again into a southern and a northern branch:

The southern branch runs over three compressor stations at Hostim, Veselí nad Lužnicí and Strážovice  to the transfer station Rozvadov  on the Czech-German border. On the German side, near Waidhaus in Bavaria, the transfer takes place to the northern branch of the Central European Gas Pipeline (MEGAL).

The northern branch runs through two compressor stations at Kralice nad Oslavou and a junction near Hospozín, from where a cross connection branches off to the southern route to Hora Svaté Kateřiny  and Brandov  on the German-Czech border. Here on the German side, near Olbernhau and Sayda  in Saxony, connections to the Baltic Sea Pipeline Connection Line (OPAL), to the Saxony-Thuringia Natural Gas Line (STEGAL) and to the Central European Transversal (MET).

Since the beginning of 2013, the end points of the northern and southern branches have also been connected by the GAZELLE pipeline.