Azerbaijan, Baku, April 18 / Trend A.Badalova /
The difference between Nabucco West and Trans AdriaticPipeline (TAP) projects is that the first one will probably appear as the competitor to Russia's South Stream, political risk analyst at Menas Association in London, focusing on Caspian energy and political issues, Alexander Jackson believes.
"Politically, Nabucco West unlike TAP would directly compete with Russia's South Stream by providing the Balkans with Caspian gas", Jackson wrote Trend in an e-mail.
According to Jackson, it is very unlikely that the Balkans have enough demand for both Nabucco West (in an expanded form with the capacity of 31 billion cubic metres) and South Stream, with 63 billion cubic metres.
At the same time Jackon stressed that Nabucco West in contrast to the South Stream strengthens European energy security by diversifying the gas supply of the Balkans.
Earlier Managing Director of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, Reinhard Mitschek, comparing Nabucco West with the South Stream pipeline, said that the ideas behind these two projects totally differ. Nabucco West, according to Mitschek, offers a completely new route - an alternative route with alternative gas, and he expressed hope that market players will find these offers very attractive.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of Nabucco project, which envisages construction of the pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. The gas to be produced within the second phase of the development of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field is considered as the main source for the project.
The project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV and Hungary's FGSZ.
In March Nabucco West and TAP submitted their final offer to the Shah Deniz Consortium. The transportation offers include substantial information about the technical, regulatory, financial and other aspects of the projects.
The final decision on the European pipeline is expected to be made until the end of June, 2013.
The South Stream project includes the construction of a gas pipeline across the Black Sea to the South and Central European countries. It is planned that its construction will be completed in 2015. The design capacity of the "South Stream" is 63 billion cubic meters of gas per year, the estimated cost of the project is 8.6 billion euro.