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Christian Dolezal: â€œSouth Stream project can not be compared with Nabuccoâ€

29 December 2011 11:54 (UTC +04:00)

He says that, South Stream was a rout substitute while Nabucco opened a new corridor with diversified gas supply for Turkey and Europe: â€œNabucco has a very strong legal framework with all transit countries and Turkey in form of the Intergovernmental Agreement as a treaty and the bilateral Project Support Agreement, BOTAS is Nabucco Shareholder. So the projects cannot be comparedâ€.

Note that, Turkey, on Wednesday, gave its formal permission to build the South Stream pipeline across its territories for transporting Russian gas into Europeâ€™s lucrative energy markets. However, Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz announced that, they did not intend to be partner of South Stream project: â€œBut, if we receive such proposal, we can consider itâ€.

South Stream is a proposed gas pipeline to transport Russian natural gas to the Black Sea to Bulgaria and further to Greece, Italy and Austria. The project is seen as rival to the planned Nabucco pipeline. The offshore pipeline is planned to carry 63 billion cubic metres (2.2 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas per year. The pipeline will be built and operated by several project companies. The offshore section of the pipeline would be built and operated by South Stream AG, a joint company of Gazprom, Eni, Ã‰lectricitÃ© de France, and Wintershall.

The Nabucco pipeline (also referred as Turkeyâ€“Austria gas pipeline) is a proposed natural gas pipeline from Erzurum in Turkey to Baumgarten an der March in Austria diversifying natural gas suppliers and delivery routes for Europe. The pipeline attempts to lessen European dependence on Russian energy. The project is backed by several European Union states and the United States and is seen as rival to the Gazprom-Eni South Stream pipeline project. At the same time, there are some doubts concerning viability of supplies. The main supplier is expected to be Iraq with potential supplies from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Egypt.

Preparations for the Nabucco project started in 2002 and the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria was signed on 13 July 2009. The project is developed by the consortium of six companies. If built, the pipeline is expected to be operational by 2017 and it will carry 31 billion cubic metres (1.1 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas per year.