U.S, Washington, Aug.7 / Trend Capital N. Bogdanova /

The United States are not viewing the South stream project as a competitor project to Nabucco, U.S Special Envoy for energy Richard Morningstar told Trend Capital. He was commenting on the Russia-Turkey cooperation.

"We believe not the competition, but the cooperation is the most important thing," Morningstar said.

 "Nabucco and the South Stream shouldn't be viewed as competitors. The U.S. policy is to diversify the energy security of Europe by different resources," Morningstar said.

"We believe that Turkey should become a leader in the regional energy cooperation," special envoy said. He avoided commenting on the Russia-Turkey cooperation on the South stream project: "This is something that is in the interests of these two countries".

Morningstar thinks if Turkey becomes a leader in energy cooperation in the region, "it will be a benefit for Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan". "Europe needs Turkey's, Azerbaijan's and even Russia's energy resources, but we don't want to create a competitive situation in such kind of case," he said

Special Envoy said it is very important to estimate the exact prices of gas between Azerbaijan and Turkey: "It is important that Baku understands Ankara's gas demand", he added.

Recently, Turkey and Russia signed an intergovernmental document on cooperation in energy field. This document enables Russia to hold exploratory work on South stream project in the Turkish territory. This project stipulates new route for Russian gas delivery to Europe through the Black Sea.

NABUCCO is projected main 3,300-kilometer-gas pipeline avoiding Russia from Central Asia to EU countries, mainly, Austria and Germany. Project capacity is 26-32 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Construction is planned to complete by 2013.   

OMV Gas GmbH (Austria), Botas (Turkey), Bulgargaz (Bulgaria), S.N.T.G.N. Transgaz S.A. (Romania), MOL Natural Gas Transmission Company Ltd. (Hungary), RWE (Germany) participate in consortium on gas pipeline construction.

First, Nabucco gas pipeline project envisaged gas supply from Iranian fields to the Persian Gulf. This project was submitted in 2004. Decision on conflict around Iranian nuclear program was made to change project in order to have opportunity to supply gas from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. 

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