Despite a drop in gas consumption in 2009, due to the
economic crisis, a critical European decrease is unlikely until 2012, according
to Bulgarian geopolitician Plamen Dimitrov.
Speaking on the topic of
Bulgaria
's place on the new Eurasian energy map, the scientist noted that it was
unrealistic to expect that the Nabucco natural gas pipeline would come onstream
before 2016.
Dimitrov, a member of the board of the Bulgarian
Geopolitics Society, has made this prediction at a news conference organized by
the History Department of the Union of Scientists in
Bulgaria
.
This meant, according to him, that
Bulgaria
would not meantime attain a desirable level of diversification of
supplies. The country therefore needed to ensure that inter-system links with
Greece
and
Romania
were built more quickly.
The EU had promised partial funding of these links, he
noted, adding that other new shareholders, apart from
Bulgaria
,
Russia
and
Greece
, should be attracted to the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline
project.
The entity most affected by the reduction of natural
gas consumption, Dimitrov said, is Russian supplier Gazprom. He noted that the
company's natural gas exports to European countries had decreased significantly,
but that supplies to the Russian domestic market had declined even more
dramatically.
Almost two-thirds of Gazprom's output is sold inside
Russia
, he stated. The Russian market would recover more slowly than the rest
of
Europe
, so that in the following few years Gazprom's problem would be, not to
extract enough gas for its customers, but to find enough customers for the
extracted gas.
Speaking of difficulties elsewhere, Dimitrov said that
tensions between
Russia
and
Ukraine
about natural gas supplies remain, and that these were not dependent on
short-term political change in
Ukraine
.
"It is a delusion to believe that the tension
will vanish or decrease if a pro-Russian candidate wins this month's elections
in
Ukraine
. This is a structural problem that will exist for a long time, and the
threat of irregular natural gas supplies will remain," Dimitrov concluded.