Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 4 /Trend, A.Badalova/
ITGI is not likely to be chosen by Shah-Deniz Consortium as a preferable pipeline route to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe, John Roberts, Energy security specialist at Platts believes.
"I don't think that ITGI will be chosen. The project has too many problems," Roberts told Trend by phone on Tuesday.
He believes that the pipeline is too small and is the least flexible in terms of going into something bigger.
There is a question concerning the route going to Greece, which is the same route for the gas in South Stream project.
"ITGI is not likely unless it is part of combination of routes," he said.
As regards to Tran Adriatic Pipeline, Nabucco and BP's South-East Europe option , Roberts thinks that they can not be considered in isolation from the proposals that were made for Shah-Deniz Consortium.
"We don't know which offers have been made," he said.
Last week all three pipeline projects (Nabucco, ITGI and TAP), aimed at transporting Azerbaijani gas to Europe under the second phase of the project on development of the Shah Deniz gas-condensate field submitted final proposals to the Azerbaijani side.
The Shah Deniz-2 consortium will review proposals submitted in accordance with previously announced criteria, including commercial attractiveness, ability for project realization from the technical and financial point of view, engineering and design work, management, coordination and transparency, the possibility of a phased scale-up and other criteria.
The Azerbaijani side is going to deliver 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Europe under the Shah Deniz-2 project through the chosen pipeline.
"Until we know how the pipeline itself match with the offers to purchase Azerbaijani gas, we can't work out which is the best," Roberts said.
The BP Company has recently suggested a new direction to transport Azerbaijani gas from the Shah Deniz field to South-East Europe along with gas transportation through prospective route of the Southern Gas Corridor.
"If one payer or one buyer will suggest a big amount of gas at a good price then Azerbaijan will be interested in implementing the project that will serve these buyers," Roberts believes.