Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said the Balkan country will ask the European Commission to revive the Nabucco-West gas pipeline project on its territory. Borisov considers himself a maverick of the project because in the final stage of its development heinvited the Nabucco partners to Sofia andwent to Vienna to lobby for Nabucco-West, independent consultant Peter Poptchev, a long-time Bulgarian ambassador-at-large for energy security,told New Europe on March 5.
The Nabucco pipeline was planned to take Caspian gasfrom the Turkish-Bulgarian border via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to Austria. Nabucco West, a downsized version of the original Nabucco pipeline, lost to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) as the preferred route to transport gas from the Azeri Shah Deniz II field to Europe.
Poptchev noted that when Nabucco was scrapped it gave way not only to TAP but also to the Gazprom-led South Stream gas pipeline. Russia recently abandoned plans to build South Stream via the Black Sea to Bulgaria, opting instead for the so-called Turkish Stream pipeline.
See also: Russia pressures EU over Turkish gas corridor
“Now that South Stream is no more, or not in its original form, a rebirth of Nabucco-West, or a version thereof, should be good for European energy security,” said Poptchev, who was Bulgaria’s national coordinator for Nabucco and Nabucco-West and was on the short-lived Nabucco Committee.
Borisov said in Sofia on March 4 that Bulgaria has been investing in the Nabucco project for years and urged Brussels to revive the project. “In this way Europe too will diversify [its gas sources] and I hope we will get full support from the European Commission,” Borisov told reporters after meetingwith Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Poptchev told New Europe that Baku has greatly changed its attitude to Nabucco-West and any EU-bound new opportunities for its gas, given the collapse of oil price and the need to pump more gas to Europe to make up for lost revenue. Azerbaijan also fears that competitors - Turkmenistan, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Qatar, Cyprus and Israel - mightprovide Europe with an alternative to Russian gas supplies.
Nabucco-West has been “reborn” in the form of a “Bulgaria-to-Austria-Pipeline” along the route of scrapped Nabucco-West with a minimum of 23 billion cubic metres capacity, Poptchev said, adding that all permits for such a pipeline have already been obtained in 2013. “It is likely that a new Nabucco-West (Bulgaria-Austria Pipeline) can carry both non-Russian and Russian gas to central Europe through Bulgaria,” he said.
The Interconnector-Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) will suffice to transit Azeri gas to Central Europe through Bulgaria only if Azerbaijan would not be able to provide sufficient volumes outside the Shah Deniz contracts, Poptchev said.
“Borisov said he would discuss the Nabucco-West restoration with Brussels and this is the right approach as we all in the EU and Southeast Europe are going to be bound with the Energy Union,” Poptchev said, referring to the European Commission’s recently unveiled plan to increase coordination between the EU’s 28 nationalenergymarkets.
He said Austria would welcome a revived Nabucco-West because it would boost Baumgarten’s role as a European gas hub.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/lazarus-pipeline-borisov-hopes-bring-nabucco-back-life