Azernews.Az

LONDON – Europe needs to unify three competing natural gas pipeline projects in order to ensure it diversifies supply away from Russia, a political advisor to the Nabucco pipeline project said Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported

Joschka Fischer, a former German vice-chancellor and foreign minister, said Nabucco and its two competing projects would all benefit from being merged.

"We have to try to integrate several European projects into one. There's also a strong wish also in Brussels to do this, and I think this is doable," said Fischer.

After recent struggles with Russia over winter gas supplies, particularly to and through former Soviet satellite states, the European Union is seeking to shift the balance of power in European energy. The 3,200-kilometer Nabucco pipeline would, if built, be the first major natural gas pipeline into Europe not controlled by Russia.

But leading EU officials have in recent week discussed unifying Nabucco and the two other leading proposed projects, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP, and Italy, Turkey, Greece Interconnector, or ITGI.

However, Fischer's proposition was met with a lukewarm reception by all three projects.

"We don't have any objections to entering talks with the objective of ensuring the strategic target of diversification together with another medium-sized project," ITGI Managing Director Elio Ruggeri told Dow Jones Newswires. "I acknowledge that a merger may make good political sense...but it also has to make commercially good sense, it has to be financially viable. I'm not sure that would be the case with the supply currently available."

The Nabucco Consortium stopped short of dismissing the idea, but also signaled that, at best, the discussion is premature.

"It's not something that's on the table in the consortium at the moment," spokesman Christian Dolezal said, declining to comment further.

TAP, which ends in Albania and will be dependent on hooking up with other pipes to receive gas from outside of Europe, said Wednesday it would be open to discussions of a merger of the projects.

"We remain open to co-operations. We are willing to listen to all ideas that are presented to us," said Michael Hoffmann, pipeline projects director of communications.

The major challenge to all three projects is to secure supplies. All are in the running to secure some of the 10 billion cubic meters of gas the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz II field consortium has pledged to export to Europe. Another potential supply source is Iraqi Kurdistan, where large reserves are in the process of being developed for production.

However, no concrete supply promises or contracts have materialized thus far.

Fischer also said in his presentation at a gas conference in Vienna that the destiny of Nabucco, by far the largest of the three projects, most likely will be determined within a month, with reference to negotiations for supply from Azerbaijan.

These talks are deemed key to the realization of the pipeline. But the three European pipelines aren't the only takers of future Azerbaijani supplies, as Russia's planned South Stream project and Turkey are also seeking Azeri gas.

The Nabucco pipeline is scheduled to open in 2015 or early 2016 and in following years to reach its maximum capacity of 31 bcm. The TAP and ITGI projects will both have a capacity of about 10 bcm.