Azerbaijan, Baku, 7 March / corr. Trend A. Badalova/ The Ukrainian government plans to discuss the White Stream gas pipeline project in Azerbaijan. Yulia Timoshenko, the premier of Ukraine will visit Azerbaijan at the end of March and will discuss the energy cooperation within the project.
The White Stream project which was initiated by Yulia Timoshenko during her visit in Brussels in February envisages the construction of the gas pipeline starting from Turkmenistan through Azerbaijan to the Georgian port of Supsa and onwards through the bottom of the Black sea and through the Crimea to the European Union countries.
The analysts are sceptical of the project. Timur Khayrullin, the expert of the Antanta Capital investment company believes that the Turkmen gas may not be sufficient to supply the gas pipeline. "The pipeline Central Asia-Center is expected to be expanded and Turkmenistan plans to construct a new pipeline in China. The possibility of the construction of the Nabucco pipeline is being studied. "The White Stream is most unlikely to be constructed," the analyst said to Trend .
"The realization of the White Stream project is very complicated from a technical point of view. It will be important to build two pipelines in order to transport gas via that route. One is through the Caspian and the other is the seabed of the Black Sea. As a result it will be costly to build the pipeline and will hinder the completion of the project," Seymur Aliyev, the deputy director of Trend said.
Brendan Devlin, the assistant to the EU coordinator on south gas transport projects of the East-West corridor said in February that the EU is interested in the implementation of the White Stream project which will enable the expansion of the gas supply to the EuropeanUnion. According to Devlin, the project can be financed from the technical point of view by financial resourcesto realize the projects in order to establish the unified Trans European energy network.