Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.2 / Trend, E. Ismailov /
Interconnection Turkey Greece Italy, or ITGI, pipeline project is in a better position to compete for gas from Azerbaijan than the rival Nabucco development, Italy's Edison Company's Executive Vice President Roberto Poti said, Bloomberg reports.
ITGI is being developed with Greek utility Depa SA and Turkey's pipeline company Botas to carry Azerbaijani gas to Italy through Turkey and Greece.
"In the long run ITGI and Nabucco are complimentary projects, but they will compete to get 8 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from 2016 or 2017," he said.
He said it's easier to provide a guarantee for gas for ITGI than Nabucco. The link will carry 8 billion to 9 billion cubic meters to Italy and 2 billion to 3 billion cubic meters to Greece annually. It will use Turkey's existing lines and build two lines through Greece and the Adriatic Sea for less than 1 billion euros, Poti said.
"ITGI will definitely have much less gas transit costs than Nabucco." ITGI will be built after securing Azerbaijani gas, he said.
The ITGI Transport Corridor designed to transport the Azerbaijani gas to Greece and Italy includes an updated Turkish pipeline infrastructure, as well as projects ITG (connecting pipeline Turkey-Greece) and IGI. Greece-Italy junction pipeline is a missing link of Turkey-Greece-Italy transport corridor which enables to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to Italy and West Europe via Turkey and Greece. The designed carrying capacity of ITGI is 11.8 bln cu m per year.
Head of the RWE Supply and Trading Business Development Department Jeremy Ellis said earlier, by connecting the IGI and the Nabucco gas pipelines to provide supplies to the Greek and Italian markets, the Turkish gas transportation infrastructure would be completely bypassed. he Greek DEPA company proposed utilizing the IGI during the first phase of Nabucco's implementation.
The Nabucco project is worth 7.9 billion euro. Construction is planned to start in 2011, with the first supplies beginning in 2015. Its maximum capacity will hit 31 billion cubic meters per year. Nabucco participants are the Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas and German RWE. Each has an equal 16.67-percent share. The pipeline aims to supply gas from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iraq.