Nabucco loses bid to bring Azeri gas to Europe
28.06.2013 / 09:52 CET
Shah Deniz consortium chooses Trans-Adriatic Pipeline over EU’s
preferred bidder.
The decade-long battle to pipe Azeri gas to the European Union has
been won by the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), a consortium of
Norwegian, German and Swiss companies.
TAP’s victory dashes the immediate hopes a project long advocated by
the EU, the Nabucco pipeline. However, Azerbaijan and the European
Commission have both indicated that they expect enough gas will
eventually be available to convince Nabucco’s backers to continue with
their plan.
TAP will carry Azeri gas from Turkey’s border to Greece to the
southern tip of Italy, passing through Albania and through the
Adriatic Sea.
Nabucco’s original plan was to build a pipeline all the way from
eastern Turkey to central Europe, but it dramatically reduced its
plans after Turkey and Azerbaijan agreed in mid-2012 to build a
pipeline themselves, called the Trans-Anatolia Pipeline (Tanap).
Its truncated plan – known as Nabucco West – envisaged carrying gas
from Turkey’s border with Greece through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary
to the gas-transport hub of Baumgarten in Austria.
The decision to opt for the southern option, TAP, was made by the
consortium that is developing the giant Shah Deniz II field in the
Azeri waters of the Caspian Sea. Its leading members are Azerbaijan’s
state-owned SOCAR, Norway’s Statoil and BP, a multinational energy
giant.
BP, which leads the Shah Deniz consortium, has said that the Shah
Deniz II gas field is the biggest gas discovery it has ever made and
the most complex project that it has taken on.
The EU currently receives about 2.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas
from Azerbaijan, via Turkey. TAP is designed to be able to carry 10 to
20 bcm per year. Azerbaijan believes it will ultimately be able to
pipe a total of 50 bcm per year to Turkey and the EU.
The European Commission had no role in the selection and was
officially neutral, but Nabucco had benefited from the advocacy of
several European commissioners because it was seen as a means of
reducing the dependence of several EU member states – Romania,
Bulgaria and Hungary – on Russian gas.
Nabucco’s prospects began to buckle several years ago when would-be
investors baulked at the cost of the original plan for a 3,900
kilometre pipeline and Azerbaijan’s decision in 2011 to look to build
a pipeline itself with Turkey effectively took a major geopolitical
element in strategic thinking out of the EU’s hands.
The shortened version of Nabucco – Nabucco West – in 2012 beat off a
rival northern route, the South-East Europe Pipeline (SEEP), to make
it into the final selection round. This pitted it against the winning
southern option, TAP, a less ambitious plan put together by Norway’s
Statoil, Switzerland’s Axpo and Germany’s E.ON.
TAP will link up with the Ionian pipeline, which runs along the
Adriatic from Slovenia to Austria. This in turn will provide Bosnia to
a supply not controlled by Serbia or Russia.
TAP is expected to be built by 2019.
© 2013 European Voice. All rights reserved.