Turkish-Azeri gas agreements ‘a chance for Nabucco’
The package of gas agreements recently signed by Turkey and Azerbaijan is a chance for the implementation of the Nabucco pipeline project, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz was quoted by the Haberturk newspaper as saying on Tuesday.
Yildiz told journalists that Turkey, which is not a natural gas producer but a transporting country, aspires to the implementation of the Nabucco project, which seeks to transport gas from the Caspian region and Middle East to European countries.
The Azerbaijani-Turkish gas contracts, signed in late October, include a transit agreement for Azerbaijani gas transportation through Turkey to Europe.
Construction of Nabucco, a 3,900 km pipeline with a maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic meters per year, which is part of the Southern Corridor of pipelines, is due to start in 2013 and first supplies are expected in 2017.
The Southern Corridor is a priority EU energy project diversifying supply routes and sources and increasing EU energy security. Besides the Nabucco gas pipeline, it includes Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI).
The Turkish minister said further that the Nabucco project will increase Turkey's role in the region and turn the country into "a bridge" between energy producers and consumers.
"Turkey will assist in safe transportation of energy resources from the Caspian region and Central Asia to the European market," Yildiz said.
He also said that Turkish company BOTAS, which has a share in the Nabucco project, will receive huge profits from gas transit to Europe.
The gas produced within the second phase of Shahdaniz, Azerbaijan’s largest gas field in the Caspian Sea, is considered to be the main source of gas for the Nabucco project. Azerbaijan plans to supply 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe from 2017 within the Shahdaniz 2 project.
In order to export most of 50 billion cubic meters of gas that Azerbaijan plans to produce in 2025, Baku and Ankara intend to build a new pipeline in Turkey. The participants of the project plan to address all issues relating to the gas pipeline in 2012, further launch construction work and complete it by late 2017 when implementation of Shahdaniz 2 is scheduled to begin.
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