Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug.28
By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:
Further progress for the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline will be complicated by strategic, commercial and market obstacles, Ashley Sherman, Principal Research Analyst – Caspian & Europe at Wood Mackenzie research and consulting company told Trend.
“The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP) idea – and high-level strategic support from the US and EU – never went away. What’s interesting is that the promoters have changed, with Georgia’s transit ambitions increasingly prominent. State-owned Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation holds a 10 percent stake in the TCGP’s promoter company. EU funding was granted for initial studies (pre-FEED and reconnaissance) but, in our view, further progress will be complicated by strategic, commercial and market obstacles,” he said.
Sherman also talked about the impact of the adoption of the convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea on the implementation of the TCGP project.
“We just had the one-year anniversary of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. For TCGP hopes, not much has changed yet. This includes our bearish long-term outlook for the TCGP’s commercial fit in the dynamic jigsaw of the Southern Gas Corridor and Europe’s gas market,” said the analyst.
He pointed out that crucially, the legal convention still needs ratification in Russia and Iran.
“Ratification in Iran is the most uncertain in the current geopolitical context. Only then the possible next steps for TCGP – or efforts to oppose it – become clearer. So there is still a long way to go before we can treat the TCGP as a realistic opportunity,” Sherman concluded.
Trans-Caspian Pipeline envisages transportation of Turkmen gas to Europe through Azerbaijan.
Turkmenistan is studying the possibility of bringing its energy products to the European market. To this end, a 300-kilometer gas pipeline will have to be laid along the Caspian seabed to the shores of Azerbaijan.
Turkmenistan has declared its readiness to supply Europe with an annual volume of up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas.
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