Turkey is negotiating with Russian giant Gazprom to carry natural gas from a multinational pipeline project, Nabucco, that plans to reduce Europe's dependency on Russia, Turkey's Energy Minister Hilmi Güler said yesterday.
Russia signed long term agreements with both Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, the main gas producers of the region to block these countries choosing the western route, or Turkey, to transfer their gas and oil reserves. Many experts argued that Russia's move made it almost impossible to get Nabucco going.
Güler, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a natural gas symposium, argued that the Nabucco project will not be affected by any of the current developments. “We're seriously watching what's going on in this field. Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary are in this project and the European Union is involved as well.”
Confirming that Turkey is about to complete its part of the project Güler said, “We have a network that can meet EU's gas demands for at 10 years.” Güler also said Turkey is in discussions with Gazprom and some other international companies to let their natural gas flow from Nabucco. “We're talking about it for some time. Nabucco will start from Turkey. Therefore the source countries are here: Iran, Azerbaijan, if they accept Egypt, probably Iraq and of course Turkmenistan and Russia.”
(Turkish Daily News, 30/05/2007)