Posted by meb at February 5th, 2009

Ankara may become a hub in the Nabucco project, giving Turkey a chance to control the gas flow and to benefit from the Caspian natural gas instead of just being a transit country or just bridging the gas flow to the European markets, a key administrator of the project has said.

Reinhard Mitschek, international managing director of the Nabucco pipeline project, said negotiations among the partner countries are continuing to offer Ankara a position as the center of the Nabucco project. If the partner countries agree, Turkey will get extra revenue for being a router country and it will also have a chance to purchase natural gas at a much cheaper price than it is paying.

Speaking in Ankara on Wed-nesday, Mitschek said Turkey was a key country in the Nabucco pipeline, which will carry natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe via Turkey and Georgia. He said there is no “plan B” if Turkey leaves the consortium.

Turkey will play an important role in transporting gas from Central Asia to Europe, Mitschek said. He noted that the flow of natural gas through the pipeline will start by 2014.

“We have only one plan and that is to realize the operation of the project in due time,” he noted. Underlining that Turkey will host a big part of the pipeline, he said Turkey was a prominent central power with regard to the project’s success. He said the construction of the Nabucco pipeline will start by 2011 and is expected to be entirely finished by 2014.

He said the six member countries would consider the possibility of including others in the project if they receive an offer to this end. When asked whether Iranian gas would be added to the flow, he said the project was open to any offers. “Russia is also not kept out of the project,” he added.

Noting that they expected the Nabucco pipeline to be connected to surrounding gas pipelines, he said the recent clash between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas prices proved how a project such as Nabucco is important for Europe.

Mitschek also underlined what he said was a very critical detail: “The project has nothing to do with Turkey’s EU membership.”

Nabucco will be 3,296 kilometers long, nearly 2,000 kilometers of which will be in Turkey. The total cost of the project is expected to be 7.9 billion euros.

Mitschek said there has been important progress so far for the launch the project. Feasibility studies are almost over and the technical studies will possibly finish in the next two years, he estimated. Currently there are no financial obstacles standing in the way of kicking off and carrying out the project thanks to the willingness of the partner countries and international support, he added, also noting that the customers are ready, too.

Once the pipeline starts pumping gas, it will transfer 8 billion to 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year — a figure that could increase to as much as 31 billion cubic meters if more demand and supply are found.

He recalled that they had initiated preliminary research to measure if there was enough demand for the gas to be carried by the pipeline. The result was stunning: European gas companies said they would buy a total of 65 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

He also rejected the claims that the pipeline would fail to find enough natural gas to keep the project profitable, saying the Azeri gas will initially provide 8 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Other countries such as Turkmenistan, Iran and Egypt will also start sending their gas to European markets through the pipeline, he said.
source: Today’s Zaman

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