Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 9 / Trend /
NABUCCO is an ambitious project that is of great importance for the future of European energy security on the one hand, but also important for the energy producers in the Caspian region and beyond on the other hand, LINKS Executive Director Dennis Sammut told Trend. LINKS is a British NGO.
"The more options the energy producing countries, such as Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have to export their products the better for them because it
gives them flexibility," he said.
"Energy is both
a commercial and a strategic commodity. The price must be right and fair for
both supplier and consumer. However supply needs to be reliable. NABUCCO will
help to achieve this so I hope that the project can be realised," Sammut said.
There are many problems ahead, including securing the financing, ensuring that
suppliers agree to use Nabucco and finally ensuring that the transit countries
all feel that the project benefits them as well. It is possible that one or
several of these conditions will not exist and at that point the project will
fail, he said.
"However I remember when Baku Tbilisi Ceyhan was being discussed some people believed that it will never happen," Sammut said.
In the end because supplier countries, consumer countries and transit countries all understood that BTC was good for all of them the project was implemented efficiently and on schedule and is now considered as a success story, said Sammut. "I am confidant the same will be with NABUCCO," he said.
The Nabucco project worth 7.9 billion euro will deliver Azerbaijani and Central Asian gas to the EU. Its maximum capacity will be 31 billion cubic meters per year. Nabucco shareholders are the Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE with 16.7 percent each.
Construction of the pipeline is expected to commence in 2011. First gas supplied will be delivered in 2014.
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