Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 11 / Trend A.Badalova/
Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) in the contest to supply Azerbaijani gas to Europe has a distinct advantage over Nabucco West project, Professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris, Terence Murphy told Trend.
Murphy stressed that unfortunately, the consortium of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas field development has ruled out choosing two projects as there is only 10 billion cubic meters of gas available for the Southern Gas Corridor in early stage. At the same time he believes that the participation of Norwegian company Statoil across the supply chain within the Southern Gas Corridor project may give TAP and advantage over Nabucco West.
"It /Staoil/ is a member of the Shah Deniz Consortium, a partner in TAP, and most likely a stakeholder in TANAP (Trans Anatolian gas pipeline). Statoil's participation in these three project most likely gives TAP a distinct advantage over Nabucco West," Murphy told Trend via e-mail.
The Southern Corridor is one of the EU's priority energy projects aimed at diversifying the routes and sources of energy supply, thereby increasing secure delivery. Gas which will be produced during the second stage of the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects.
Currently, the Shah Deniz consortium is considering two variants for its gas transportation to Europe - Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Nabucco West. The final decision on the pipeline route will be made in June, 2013.
According to Murphy, what has emerged in 2012 is a sensible reordering of several ambitious projects. In particular he stressed that the decision to scale back Nabucco project was the most appropriate response to several developments, including the lead that TAP had acquired, the lack of a firm commitment for volumes of gas need to make Nabucco financial viable, and the emergence of TANAP, a project that eliminated the need for the Turkish leg of Nabucco.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of Nabucco project, which envisages construction of the pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. The project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE and Hungary's FGSZ.
TAP project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. TAP's current shareholders are AXPO of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent). The pipeline's initial pipeline capacity will be 10 billion cubic metres per year, but is easily expandable to 20 billion cubic metres per year.