'Nabucco West pipeline's target markets will need more Caspian gas '

Nabucco West pipeline's target markets will need Caspian gas more than Italy, which TAP (Trans Adriatic Pipeline) is focused on, Editor-in-Chief at Eurasia Energy Observer, Andrej Tibold believes.

"There will be more demand for Caspian gas, provided that prices are competitive, in the markets that Nabucco aims to supply," Tibold wrote Trend in an e-mail.

Nabucco West is a short-cut version of Nabucco project, which envisages construction of the pipeline from Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. The Nabucco West Proposal was submitted by Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH on 16 May, 2012. The project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE and Hungary's FGSZ.

Tibold said that although TAP provides the possibility to supply parts of the South Eastern European (SEE) market, it is more focused on the Italian market.

"This market is more diversified than the SEE and Central European market," he said.

This week, the consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas field development selected Nabucco West as the single pipeline option for the potential export of Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas to Central Europe.

Tibold belives that one of Nabucco's West main advantages over SEEP is that it has practically all its permitting ready and is supported by an intergovernmental agreement, as concluded within the framework of the Nabucco pipeline.

The consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development plans to make a final decision on a pipeline route to export Azerbaijani gas to the European markets in 2013. The selection will be made between Nabucco West and TAP projects.

TAP is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. TAP's shareholders are EGL of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).

The total length of TAP is approximately 800 kilometres. The initial pipeline capacity of TAP will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year.

In February, the Shah Deniz Consortium announced that TAP was chosen as the priority route for export of the Azerbaijani gas to Italy.


/Trend/