Russia’s Gazprom, Greece’s DEPA, and Italy’s Edison have signed an
agreement of cooperation in St Petersburg that envisages joint efforts
aimed at establishing a southern route for gas supplies from Russia to
Europe, which will run across Turkey and Greece to Italy.
The three companies said in a press release on June 2, “they would
coordinate the development and implementation of the Turkish Stream gas
pipeline project and of the Poseidon project from the Turkish/Greek
border to Italy, in full compliance with relevant applicable legislative
framework”. In addition, the agreement formalises the arrangements on
expanding cooperation in the field of Russian gas deliveries.
“Gazprom already begun the construction of the first pipeline of
Turkish Stream and there is also an idea of beginning of construction of
second pipeline,”
Konstantin Simonov, director of the
independent National Energy Security Fund in Moscow, told New Europe by
phone, arguing that it has not been decided yet whether the Russian gas
via the second pipeline “will come to Greece through Turkey or the gas
will come to Greece through Bulgaria”.
Simonov said the Russian company signed the memorandum with DEPA and
Edison because the IGI Poseidon “pipeline can be the most interesting
project for Gazprom”.
He noted, however, that the decision to build IGI Poseidon is not
final because the project is seen as a rival to the Trans Anatolian
Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) that initially
plan to transport 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas from Azerbaijan
to Italy.
According to Simonov, Italy’s ENI and Snam have lobbied for
increasing TAP’s capacity and using the expanded pipeline to transit gas
to Italy via Greece without constructing IGI Poseidon. Gazprom could
bid to use TAP’s extra capacity when the pipeline is expanded after
2020.
Simonov argued, however, that Gazprom prefers IGI Poseidon, first
supported by the EU as a way to bring Caspian gas to Europe, for its own
use.
“If Gazprom agrees to build ITGI or to use extra capacity of TAP,
there will not be enough gas to supply all consumers: Italy, Greece,
Bulgaria, Balkan area and Hungary so it means, that for example, Hungary
and Serbia will still be dependent of Ukrainian transit flows,” Simonov
said.
“It’s a possible scenario because (Gazprom CEO
Alexey)
Miller
said that Gazprom can still transit 15 bcm after the end of the
contract with Ukraine but, of course, the best scenario for Gazprom is
to build before the end of 2019 alternative pipeline routes to have this
capacity to deliver the gas without Ukraine to all the countries,”
Simonov said, reminding that Gazprom is also planning to build Nord
Stream-2 to Germany.
The European Commission wants at least some of the Russian gas
transit via Ukraine to be maintained. “I understand, of course, there
will be serious pressure from European Commission and some European
countries but Gazprom can say: ‘Okay, we will transit 15 bcm, but it’s
better to have alternative routes with enough capacity than not to do
it,’” Simonov said, adding that if Gazprom has alternative routes after
2020 it will be able to solve possible gas transit problems down the
road. “It doesn’t matter whether Ukraine will still be a transit country
or not, but it’s better to have possibility to deliver the gas to the
south of Europe without Ukraine,” Simonov argued.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/gazprom-plans-2nd-turkish-stream-pipe-bypass-ukraine/