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EU: Azerbaijani and Turkmen gases are sufficient for pumping of Nabucco pipeline

26 January 2011 08:03 (UTC +04:00)

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger travelled to the region earlier this month to lobby for the ’Southern Energy Corridor’ - the new pipeline route that is meant to reduce EU dependence on Russia.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev ’is ready to sell in the next five to eight years gas coming up to 18, 20 or 21 billion cubic meters (bcm), that is his proposal,’ Oettinger told a think-tank conference in Brussels.

’And the government of Turkmenistan, President (Gurbanguly) Berdymukhammedov, now, for the first time - he said 10 bcm or more, he is ready to sell to us,’ Oettinger added.

’So now I’m optimistic that the Southern Corridor is an infrastructure for 30 and more bcm, it is realistic - maybe starting in 2012, 2013, and (operational) in two or three years,’ the EU commissioner said at the event.

Several European consortia are bidding for the Azeri gas, most notably a pipeline dubbed ’Nabucco’, after the Italian opera at which the energy firms behind it agreed to the idea of the project.

The offers from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan would be enough to fill Nabucco’s planned maximum capacity of 30bcm of gas per year.

Rival, smaller, projects such as the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) are good for delivering 10-12 bcm of gas each.

Obtaining the Turkmen gas, however, is a more complicated affair, as a pipeline would have to be built across the Caspian Sea to connect it to existing Europe-bound networks.

Oettinger indicated Uzbekistan - whose authoritarian president Islam Karimov was in Brussels on Monday, in a visit hotly contested by human rights groups - would also be ready to join in.

’A few days later, the president of Uzbekistan said if we come to the eastern part of the Caspian Sea, we (would) need a link to the North East, Uzbekistan,’ the commissioner said.

In addition, Oettinger mentioned Iraq as a possible further supplier.

’I’m sure that the new government in Baghdad also will come to a decision on selling gas from their northern region to Turkey, to Europe,’ he said.

The commissioner spoke ahead of a February 4 EU summit on energy issues, where leaders are expected to pledge to coordinate energy policies, improve efficiency and guarantee funding for ’strategic’ infrastructure projects.