An unnamed British report stated that the European Commission-backed project to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russia for natural gas supplies will officially fall victim to changing market conditions before June is over.
SOFIA, Bulgaria (publics.bg)—The long-planned Nabucco natural gas pipeline, once envisioned as stretching from Azerbaijan to Austria, will be abandoned by the end of June, a Russian report says.
Citing unnamed London oil and gas analysts, the Itar-TASS news agency reported the European Commission-backed project to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russia for natural gas supplies will officially fall victim to changing market conditions before June is over.
The news agency said British experts have concluded Nabucco’s backers — which include Austria’s OMV, Germany’s RWE, Hungary’s MOL, Turkey’s Botas, Bulgarian Energy Holding and Romania’s Transgaz — will abandon the USD10 billion effort as competitors appear to be gaining traction.
The consortium that controls Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II gas field in the Caspian Sea is scheduled in late June to choose between a scaled-down version of Nabucco (dubbed Nabucco West) and the BP-backed South East Europe Pipeline as the candidate to go up against the Trans Adriatic Pipeline in a final decision on which will transport billions of cubic meters of gas annually to Europe.
The Shah Deniz consortium includes BP as well as Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company SOCAR.
The original vision for the Nabucco was for it to have a transport capacity of 31 billion cubic meters per year but, under the Nabucco West version, that has been scaled back to 10 billion cubic meters.
And while the first iteration was to run 2,500 miles from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II gas fields through Georgia, Turkey and Eastern Europe to Austria, the downsized pipeline would be 800 miles, starting at the Bulgarian-Turkish border.
Comments last week from BP Chief Executive of Refining and Marketing Iain Conn to an audience in Berlin also seemed to cast doubt on Nabucco’s viability, the EUobserver reported, as quoted by UPI.
While Conn said the choice of an Azerbaijan-European pipeline connection would be “transparent” with “no pre-determined winner,” he added that BP’s own SEEP proposal “offers an efficient routing into and through these strategically important markets” in southeastern Europe, while not similarly praising Nabucco.
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This is the smartest decision the EU has made regarding energy policy. The smartest thing for the EU to do is to build a trans-Mediterranean pipeline from Algeria to the European continent and from Morocco to Spain. Morocco and Algeria are politically stable and the most sophisticated Arab states in the region. They respect human rights and they are protect Christians in their countries. They also control the Islamic fanatics more effectively.
This is a very sensible decision and very predictable. There is really only one solution. Europe should be glad to have a European country, Russia , endowed so plentifully with resources. With fracking techniques providing us with more gas and oil and with Russia’s huge reserves of gas, our dependency on Muslim oil will be greatly reduced
Unstable situation of south Caucasus also contributed for latest decision, Azerbaijani internal problem, unsolved Artsakh situation by dictator Aliev, Turkish, Kurdish and Syrian problems in Southern Turkey, undiplomatic behavior of Sultan Aliev, Russians domination of South Caucasus and Syria, especially latest weak activity of Turkey in Syrian internal problems, changed the mind of most EU countries, plus there is big hope that even Russia may join to European Union in the future!!
If the Armenian politicians were smart, they would explore for oil in Nagorno Karabagh. There is oil in the Mardakert province. If Armenia could extract and use that oil, it could be very strategic because they could use that oil to build a strategic oil reserve in times of war and emergency . Instead those idiot politicians are only interested in enriching themselves rather than helping the country.
I live in Cluj Transylvania, Romania. We do not like the Russians. We do not like Russians allies, even they call themselves Christians. We are interested for a gasoduct with Azer gas. We know that the Russians politicians have KGBist reflexes, like Putin. we hope that the siloviki will fall from power and Russia will be governed by people like Medved. And yes, we hope that the Russians will eventually learn to respect small people. And we want finally to have good economical relations with an after Putin Russia. We admire the Georgian people who fought against the barbarian Red Army.
And unfortunately for you, the Nabucco project was NOT abbandoned!