Nabucco ready to begin pipeline construction in Turkey, spokesman says

Some 4 billion euros will be invested in the Turkish portion of the Nabucco project, a proposed pipeline designed to eventually carry natural gas from the Caspian Sea and the Middle East to Europe, according to a spokesman.

The Nabucco Pipeline Company has finalized arrangements for the physical surroundings for the part of the pipeline that will be situated in Turkey, spokesman Christian Dolezal said in an interview published on Hürriyet newspaper’s website on Sunday.

The largest portion of the pipeline project lies on Turkish soil.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced plans for a vast project to open a 40- or 50-kilometer canal between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea to direct ships, gas and oil tankers mainly, to a new route other than through the risky Bosphorus Strait. Some experts speaking to the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review had said that the ‘crazy project,’ as the PM calls it, was an alternative to Nabucco.

"Shareholders [of Nabucco] decided to locate the feeding station on the Iraq-Jordan border instead of Iran, said Nabuccos’s Dolezal. "This was a crucial decision. Due to sanctions on Iran it has become impossible to invest in pipelines there."

Everything was progressing according to schedule in the project, the spokesman said.

"We believe we can start the construction work and capacity bookings after the final decisions [by the involved countries] are made. The date we determined is the end of 2012. The construction will start simultaneously in all countries and the lines would be connected later. Before starting we need guarantees from the supplier countries," Dolezal said.

Besides Iraq and Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan was also willing to provide natural gas for the project, the spokesman said.


/Hurriyet Daily News/