Turkey and Azerbaijan's new joint transit gas pipeline project, the Trans Anadolu, needs to be completed by 2017-2018, Turkey's energy minister said Friday.
Turkey
and
Azerbaijan
's new
joint transit gas pipeline project, the Trans Anadolu, needs to be completed by
2017-2018,
Turkey
's
energy minister said Friday.
"It's early to talk about the cost of the new pipeline project,"
Taner Yildiz told reporters, declining to provide further details.
Azerbaijan
's
state-oil company Socar said Thursday that it will build the 16
billion-cubic-meter standalone gas pipeline across
Turkey
to
cater to the fast-growing economy's growing energy needs.
The announcement surprised energy executives and politicians involved in the
European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline project, which is slated to bring
natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe through Turkey, as a consortium of
gas producers is in the final stage of deciding a decade-long contest to build
the pipeline.
Socar said Thursday that the new pipeline wouldn't mean the end of Nabucco. However,
many analysts and rivals, in particular
Russia
's gas
giant OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS), have long expressed skepticism that Nabucco would
get built. The 3,900-kilometre pipeline would have a capacity of 31 billion
cubic meters a year, twice as much gas as
Azerbaijan
could
provide. Other planned sources, including
Turkmenistan
,
Iran
and
Iraq
,
remain problematic due to concerns over security and political instability.
The Nabucco consortium has repeatedly sought to dispel growing skepticism about
the pipeline's viability and the project retains strong political support in
Brussels
.
The
U.S.
, a
long-time backer of Nabucco, appears to be increasingly open to smaller-scale
alternatives that would prioritize supply to the former communist states of
south east
Europe
, where energy security
remains a concern.
Richard Morningstar, State Department special envoy for Eurasian energy, said
Wednesday that Nabucco continues to be a "desirable" project, but
that it must be "commercially viable.
"If a smaller pipeline is chosen to ship the first Shah Deniz gas to
Europe
, we
believe it should provide gas to the vulnerable countries in
Europe
and
there should be concrete, written guarantees that the pipeline will be expanded
as more gas becomes available," Morningstar said.
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