Azerbaijan, Baku, July 19 /Trend, V.Zhavoronkova/
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and ITGI (Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline), which are part of the Southern Corridor Project, are now more perspective than Nabucco, European expert on energy Samuel Lussac believes.
Southern Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for EU, which aims to diversify routes and sources of supply and thereby increase the energy security of the EU. In addition to Nabucco project, the Southern Corridor gas pipeline includes Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), White Stream and ITGI (Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline).
According to expert, given the situation, the TAP and ITGI seem more perspective than Nabucco.
"One of the major advantages of Nabucco is that it involves the construction of a pipeline through Turkey that is very attractive," Lussac, a fellow at the Political Studies Institute, told Trend by telephone from Paris.
However, unlike TAP and ITGI projects, Nabucco has a significant shortage, the expert said, and the shortage is the planned capacity of the gas pipeline. "Nabucco is too large for the moment," said Lussac.
It is planned that in the first stage, 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year will be transported from Azerbaijan to Europe, which will be obtained from the second stage of Shah Deniz field development (total reserves of which are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters).
Therefore, the sides still need a pipeline, the capacity of which is slightly more than the volume of gas produced from the field, he said.
"The problem is that the Nabucco at the moment does not correspond to the commercial realities," said the expert.
According to the analyst, Azerbaijan has large gas reserves and would like to produce more volumes expected in 2017, however, if to evaluate the current situation, TAP and ITGI in the perspective are more interesting projects than Nabucco.
These two projects will also not be implemented without difficulties, said Lussac.
"It needs to resolve some issues in Europe relating to the implementation of the TAP and ITGI projects," he said. The analyst cited the difficult economic situation in Greece.
"I am confident that the decision to be made by Azerbaijan and Shah Deniz consortium by the end of year will give preference to one of these two projects, since they correspond to the commercial realities of the region at this time, unlike Nabucco," he said.