OpEdNews.com: The Myth of Nabucco: Greed, Delusion and $11.4 Billion
17.01.2010 16:31 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Nabucco is a complex skein of greed, European
foreign policy agendas and the ongoing belief, a delusional legacy of
the Bush administration, that somehow Caspian energy "belongs" to the
West, and furthermore, that both Russia and Iran will complacently
stand back while Western capitalism pulls off another energy
initiative dwarfing BTC, OpEdNews.com says in an article.
Further complicating the picture are the differing proposed transit
and pricing policies of the countries that Nabucco will pass through.
The biggest geographical hurdle impacting the bottom line is the fact
that, if as some Nabucco boosters aver, Turkmenistan can be persuaded
to contribute natural gas, the seabed of the Caspian has yet to
definitively be delineated amongst the sea’s five riparian states, the
author of the publication finds.
According to him, the European interest in Nabucco is underpinned by
the unpleasant realization that since 1991 it has become more and more
dependent upon Russia for natural gas imports, with Russia’s state
monopoly Gazprom now supplying 40% of Europe’s imports.
As the author further notes, there is one potential supplier that
could step into the supply void, but for Washington, it is a country
too far: Iran.
Moscow still largely relies on its Eastern European Soviet-era
pipeline network, the annual winter spats between Moscow and Kiev over
payment rates and transit have deeply traumatized Brussels to conduct
a frantic search for alternatives in a desperate attempt to achieve
energy security. Nabucco is designed to carry Caspian and Central
Asian natural gas via Turkey and the Balkan states to Austria while
bypassing both Russia and Ukraine, says the article.
Nabucco agreement was signed in mid-July 2009 by Turkey, Austria and
Romania. The estimated cost of the project is $ 7.9 billion. The
pipeline will serve for transporting natural gas to European countries
via Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and
Austria. Nabucco will form the continuation of Baku-Tbilisi-Erzrum
pipeline, annually transporting 31 billion cubic meters of gas.
Construction activities are due in 2010. The pipeline is to be
launched in 2014.