Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 30 /Trend A.Badalova/
Diversification of energy supply, as well as the transit security for European countries can be provided by a parallel development of the Nabucco and White Stream gas pipelines, Reuters reported referring to the White Stream Pipeline Consortium Chairman Roberto Pirani.
According to Pirani, Azerbaijan has enough gas reserves in the longer term for a second large pipeline project.
Pirani said White Stream was not competitor to Nabucco or other projects of the Southern Gas Corridor. "What we want to avoid is competition with Nabucco," Pirani said during the O&G Pipe conference in London.
He said a concurrent development of Nabucco and White Stream will provide enhanced supply diversity, adding that without the Southern Gas Corridor there will be no diversification of gas supply for Europe.
Earlier Pirani told Trend that complementarity among all Southern Corridor projects is the key for an efficient and successful implementation of all projects, to the benefit of all parties.
The Southern Gas Corridor is a priority EU energy project diversifying energy supply routes and sources and increasing security. Gas which will be produced during the second stage of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate filed development is considered the main resource for the Southern Gas Corridor project. Under the Shah-Deniz-2 project, Azerbaijan plans to ship gas to Europe at a volume of 10 billion cubic meters.
Three projects within the Southern gas corridor - Nabucco, TAP and ITGI - have submitted final proposals to Azerbaijan, which will make its decision on preferable transportation route by the end of 2011.
"White Stream" pipeline is among the projects, aiming to transport Azerbaijani gas to the European countries. It envisages transporting the Azerbaijani gas across the Black Sea from the Georgian Port of Supsa to the Romanian Port of Constanta and onward to other EU countries.
The initial capacity of White Stream will be 8 billion cubic meters per year, which will later be increased to 16 and then to 32 billion.