KOMMERSANT: ARMENIA IS PULLED TO NABUCCO

ArmInfo
2009-09-07 14:39:00

ArmInfo. Reconciliation which started between Armenia and Turkey
has given an unexpected result. At the end of the last week they in
Ankara started to talk about Yerevan’s joining Nabucco energy project,
September 7 issue of Kommersant Russian newspaper writes. ‘Though the
experts admit such a possibility taking into account the unstable
political situation in Georgia, Azerbaijan, which is considered to
be a resource base for Nabucco, is the main obstacle on the way of
turning Armenia into a transit country. Baku has already claimed that
opening of the Armenian-Turkish border in the conditions of pendency
of the Karabakh problem conflicts with its interests. It means that
Azerbaijan will never agree to the idea of transportation of its gas
through Armenia without the Karabakh conflict settlement acceptable
for it.

Assumptions about the possible joining of Yerevan to the big energy
projects started to appear in the foreign mass media just after
the information about the forthcoming reconciliation of Armenia and
Turkey. Star Turkish newspaper said on Friday, quoting the diplomatic
sources, that Ankara may support Yerevan’s joining Nabucco, where
Armenia may replace Georgia being unstable in the political aspect. The
Azerbaijani Ekspress quoted Head of the Baku Center of Economic and
Political Research who supposed that ‘EU may require introduction
of technical changes in Nabucco for the latter to pass not through
Georgia but through Armenia’, the newspaper says. President of
"Turksam" Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic
Analysis Sinan Ogan told Kommersant that such a scenario is quite
real. ‘During signing of a protocol on preliminary agreement on
resumption of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia,
Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandyan gave to understand
that his country is ready to take part in all the energy projects
of the South Caucasus. Although he did not named Nabucco, everybody
understood what was the point. EU and the USA want to specify Nabucco
route till late 2009, therefore, Ankara started to prepare a protocol
of restoration of diplomatic relations at the heightened rates.

To recall, the 3,300 kilometres (2,050 mi) long pipeline will run from
Erzurum in Turkey via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to Baumgarten an
der March, a major natural gas hub in Austria. Construction of the
pipeline is expected to begin in 2010 and is planned to be finished
in 2014.[25] It estimated to cost around ?7.9 billion.[26][27] The
company leading the project is OMV. The project is developed by the
Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH. The managing director of the
company is Reinhardt Mitschek.[28] The shareholders of the company are:
OMV (Austria) MOL (Hungary) Transgaz (Romania) Bulgargaz (Bulgaria)
BOTAS (Turkey) RWE (Germany)

Each of the shareholders hold 16.67% of the shares.

In the meanwhile, Chairman of ArmRusgasprom CJSC Board Karen Karapetyan
told The Kommersant that development of local energy projects in
the Transcaucasus is in question and Nabucco is not among these
projects so far. Nevertheless, the possible supply of Russian gas
to Turkey and the Iran gas to Armenian power stations in exchange
for electricity supply to Iran is currently discussed. In addition,
Head of Gazprom Aleksey Miller stated earlier that SWAP operations
are possible between Iran and Turkey. In case the Armenian-Turkish
border is opened gas may be supplied just via Armenia.