State-owned Croatian gas transmission system operator, Plinacro along with Gazprom will set up a joint venture (JV) company at the beginning of the second half of 2013 to build the gas pipeline branch.
Financial aspects of the deal and other details were not disclosed but the branch is expected to be completed by 2016.
The 2,380km long South Stream gas pipeline project is being undertaken to transport Russian natural gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Austria.
The total planned capacity of the pipeline is 63 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year.
