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Russiaâ€™s State Duma Deputy Chairman: South Stream has â€œmuch better chanceâ€ than Nabucco

21 April 2009 15:45 (UTC +04:00)

According to him, new pipelines would erode Ukraineâ€™s regional monopoly while Turkey would emerge as a new monopoly after the Nabucco pipeline runs through this country.

In his words, Turkey puts forward political stipulation â€“ the EU membership now while Nabucco doesnâ€™t exist yet.

With regard to source of funding, he said South Stream will be co-financed by Gazprom and Eni under an agreement the entities have entered into.
He added that South Stream will receive no fund from Europe while $500 million is said to go to Nabucco.

â€œSouth Stream will take 45 billion cubic meters of gas and the question of feeding source has already been resolved. For Nabucco, the issue remains unresolved. Nabucco will take 8-10 billion cubic meters initially, and reaching 15 billion cubic meters after 5 years, and the design capacity of 30 billion cubic meters after a long period of time,â€ he noted.

He said South Stream has â€œmuch better chanceâ€ than Nabucco as the latter has achieved a status similar to that of Nord Stream.
According to him, none of the Caspian countries could compete with Gazprom.

â€œWe produce 650 billion cubic meters of gas, Turkmenistanâ€™s export capacity is only 70 billion cubic meters, Azerbaijanâ€™s is far less -8-12 billion. Even if Nabucco is realized, it can not compete with the Russian projects, it is a purely political project,â€ underlined.

He believes that Azerbaijan has no option but to sell its gas to Russia because Azerbaijan has no alternative markets and its gas export transport system is oriented to Russia.

He said Nabucco has real disadvantages especially because it lacks resource supplies and it runs through countries in unstable political situation.

â€œBut in any case, Nabucco will be discussed at a serious level at a conference in Ashgabat on April 23, and at the Energy Summit in Sofia on April 24-25, although none of them are expected to take a concrete action on Nabucco,â€ he concluded.