The proposed gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Europe is "not good for Europe" because it discourages the diversity of energy sources necessary for security of supply, US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said.
"If there is an agreement of this sort ... it is not good for Europe," said Bodman, speaking at the biennial ministerial meeting of the International Energy Agency. "It would fly in the face of what is needed which is diversity of supply.
"Making more natural gas available from one supplier is not diversifying," he added.
The governments of Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan agreed to the construction of a new pipeline from Turkmenistan to Russia via Kazakhstan, and the reconstruction of a second, on Saturday during a three-way summit in the Caspian Sea port of Turkmenbashi.
The Caspian shore gas pipeline will be reconstructed with a capacity of 10 billion cubic meters per year and a parallel gas pipeline built, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said.
Putin said the project would increase capacity along the route by at least 12 billion cubic meters per year by 2012.
The deal represented a major triumph for Moscow, which has long pushed the route over a rival US proposal that would cross the Caspian.
(Xinhua Financial News, 14/05/2007)