Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug.25
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Key countries (Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia) involved in the White Stream project, envisaging delivery of Caspian Sea gas to Ukraine, are unlikely to be interested in reviving the dialogue on this project, expert of the Institute of Energy Research, Ukraine, Yuriy Korolchuk told Trend Aug.25.
Earlier, the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development was the basis for the White Stream project, said the expert, adding that first of all, it is necessary to revive close economic ties within this organization and then talk about gas pipeline projects.
But the problem is that it will be difficult to cause interest in EU or Central European countries in this project, said Korolchuk.
“Even if this project would be implemented, there is a problem of reduction of Russian gas transit through Ukraine’s gas transportation system, which would lead to pressure drop in the system. So, there would be technical problems in pumping this gas through Ukraine,” he added.
Moreover, Ukraine is reducing its gas consumption, which has decreased from 30 billion cubic meters to 9 billion cubic meters from 2010 to 2016 and gas through White Stream can be of no interest to the country, according to the expert.
It is also necessary to find guaranteed gas sale market in the case of reviving the White Stream, he said, mentioning that currently, Russia and Azerbaijan are constructing gas pipelines to Europe.
White Stream (also known as the Georgia-Ukraine-EU gas pipeline) was a proposed pipeline project to transport natural gas from the Caspian region to Romania and Ukraine with further supplies to Central Europe.
For the first time the White Stream idea was presented by Ukrainian officials in 2005.
The White Stream pipeline would branch-off from the existing South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) at a location south-west of Borjomi in Georgia. From there the pipeline would run west to a new compressor station on the Georgian Black Sea coast where the gas would be compressed to high pressure and taken across the Black Sea in water depths down to 2,000 metres depth to Constanta aria in Romania.
On 14 October 2013, White Stream was included in the renewed list of key selected energy infrastructure projects designated as a project of common interest, as a component of the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline chain.
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