Azernews.Az

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of State Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, Ambassador Richard Morningstar said the Nabucco pipeline project is "a good, but not the only project."

"We support not only Nabucco, but also the entire South Energy Corridor - a series of pipelines that will be required to deliver Caucasian and Central Asian gas to Europe via Turkey," he said in an interview with the Russian Kommersant daily.

The Southern Corridor is a priority energy project for the EU aimed at increasing energy security, and includes projects such as White Stream, Nabucco, ITGI and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline.

Morningstar said EU companies must make a commercial decision about which project is the most reasonable and beneficial.

"We would have preferred Nabucco, but that does not mean it will be implemented first," he said.

The Nabucco project, supposed to pump gas from the Caspian region to European countries via Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Austria, is a key element of western strategy to cut Europe's dependence on Russian energy supplies. The 7.9-billion euro pipeline is expected to have an annual capacity of 31 billion cubic meters of gas, or no more than five percent of Europe's gas consumption in 2020.

Shareholders of the South Corridor project consider Azerbaijani gas to be the basis for filling their gas pipelines during the first stage of implementation. In particular, hopes are set on gas produced during the full-scale development of the Shah Deniz gas condensate field.

Morningstar said that the consortium developing Shah Deniz will soon make a decision about the direction of its gas sales.

"This could be Nabucco, ITGI or another project," Morningstar said. "The main thing is to have the ability to expand the pipe."

"In any case, the first pipeline will not transport very large volumes of gas," he said. "However, it must have the potential for expansion if supply volumes increase. And this will surely happen. Therefore, the infrastructure should be prepared now."

Morningstar named Iraq and Turkmenistan as other gas sources for these projects. Iranian gas, he said, should not be included in any international projects until issues relating to Iran's nuclear program have been resolved and its relations with the United States and other countries are fully normalized.

According to BP, Azerbaijan's proven gas reserves were 1.31 trillion cubic meters as of Jan. 1, with Turkmenistan's at 8.1 trillion, Iraq's at 3.17 trillion and Iran's at 29.61 trillion cubic meters.