European Energy Supplies: Azerbaijani-Turkish gas ambitions

The Nabucco consortium have  signed a cooperation deal with Turkey’s Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP).

he two parties had agreed to exchange technical and other strategic information to support the development of their projects, which will connect at the Turkish-Bulgarian border if the Nabucco project is chosen.

The agreement also highlights the need for further diversification of natural gas transportation routes to improve reliability and diversification of gas supplies to the European Union and the South Eastern Europe regions.

Whatever is the statement above, the deal was made to oust Russia from the Southern Gas Corridor. Turkey aims to earn as much as possible for gas transit to Europe. The wish is quite understandable, however hardly feasible. The two pipeline projects will never be implemented. Nabucco, widely advertised several years ago with the help of Azerbaijan and Turkey, is becoming a past matter never having a chance to become implemented. Baku sought for new ways to transport gas, with Nabucco, which was meant to decrease Europe’s dependence on Russian gas suppliers, having come in handy.

However, companies, involved in implementing the project thought it much too costly, with actual spending assessed at Euro 15 billion. Also, project participants would never manage to secure enough contracts to replace Russian supplies. Thus, expert forecasts of Nabucco’s failure came true, no one willing to take risks.

There’s another project aimed against Russian gas supplies to Europe. Azerbaijan and Turkey inked a deal for TANAP project in June 2012, with the pipeline to be annexed to those leading to Central Europe or Italy.

TANAP project envisages construction of a pipeline from Turkey's eastern border to the western border to transport gas from Azerbaijan's offshore Shah Deniz field to Europe. Initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters. Some 6 billion cubic meters of the volume will be supplied to Turkey, while the rest will be transported to European markets. According to preliminary estimates, the project cost might range from 7 to 10 billion euros.

The agreement stipulates for Azerbaijan's state energy firm SOCAR to hold 80 percent in the TANAP project, while Turkey's BOTAS and TPAO have a 20 percent share.

Read more: Azerbaijani-Turkish gas ambitions - PanARMENIAN.Net

Global Post: Pipeline talks put Turkey at center stage - by Nichole Sobecki

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Pipeline talks put Turkey at center stage - by Nichole Sobecki

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Brussels last week, his first since Turkey began negotiations to join the European Union in 2005, threw the spotlight on an issue given fresh impetus by the recent gas crisis between Russia and Ukraine: the Nabucco pipeline project. Nabucco, symbolically named for Giuseppe Verdi's 1842 operatic masterpiece that became a rallying cry for a generation of Italians determined to fight off Austrian military occupation, promises a different kind of freedom — that of energy independence from Russia. Erdogan's visit, amid the distractions of the U.S. presidential inauguration, served to remind all parties to a summit beginning this week that Nabucco could become a key sticking point in negotiations over EU accession, which Erdogan described as a "top priority" for Turkey.

If construction on Nabucco begins next year, as currently envisaged, the new pipeline could be operational by 2013. Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the advantages for European countries, and for Turkey, are "undeniable." "Europeans need the gas, and linked to that, they want to break away from the Russian monopoly," he said. "There is gas in and around the Caspian, and Turkey wants to be the key conduit in the transportation of this gas to Europe."