CEO: Nabucco West presents best option to open Southern Gas Corridor
By Aynur Jafarova
Nabucco West gas pipeline presents the best possible option to open the Southern Gas Corridor and its role in the European natural gas market is extremely important, CEO of Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH Reinhard Mitschek said in an interview to Natural Gas Europe on Thursday.
"Nabucco is one of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects in Europe. The Nabucco West pipeline will cross 1320 kilometers and four national borders. In addition, the project is a path-breaking concept in terms of its goal of diversifying energy supply across Europe. It has a potential market of over 500 million consumers," Mitschek added.
According to him, the pipeline will link its transit countries as well as Turkey to a liquid market at Baumgarten and via Baumgarten to other gas hubs across Europe.
Mitschek stressed that infrastructure for delivery of gas from Nabucco to Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Slovenia and Italy already exists and with the construction of interconnectors it would be delivered to Montenegro, Greece and Albania.
"Furthermore, from Baumgarten, capacity exists to transport the gas further into Western Europe, to Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, France and further," Mitschek said.
He also added that the capacity of Nabucco West could also be scaled up from 10 to 23 billion cubic meters in the future in a tailor made way to meet increasing demand.
Mitschek stressed that cooperation with the Shah Deniz II Consortium is "ongoing, transparent and very successful."
He mentioned that in January, a Cooperation Agreement and an Equity Option and Funding Agreement were signed between Nabucco West and the Shah Deniz partners.
"The Cooperation Agreement in particular emphasizes alignment of project schedules between the Shah Deniz Consortium and the Nabucco project," Mitschek said.
"This is what we are focusing on currently, as we work towards ensuring that Nabucco will be ready to transport gas when the Shah Deniz gas field is ready to deliver it," he added.
According to Mitschek, Nabucco has several unique advantages in terms of collaboration with transit countries.
"Firstly, in addition to having a signed and ratified Intergovernmental Agreement in place, we also have signed Project Support Agreements (PSAs) with the parties to the Agreement (Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey) in place," he said.
Another advantage of Nabucco West is that it will transit Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary before reaching Baumgarten-all growing and commercially attractive markets with a pressing demand for energy supply diversification, he added.
"Nabucco West provides the best option for all these markets to access Caspian gas, as has been emphasized by representatives of the countries themselves in recent high-level political meetings," Mitschek stressed.
Nabucco will provide benefits and chances for the national economies involved, in particular Nabucco's construction and operations will create jobs in the Nabucco countries and also in Greece and the Western Balkan countries, Mitscek mentioned.
According to Mitschek, Nabucco's current focus is on continued alignment with the Shah Deniz II project and with TANAP, "a process that is going very well."
"We will be ready to receive first gas flows from the Shah Deniz gas field, as soon as the exports will start," he said.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of the Nabucco project, which envisages construction of a pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria. Designated capacity of the project is up to 31 billion cubic meters per year.
The Nabucco project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, Austrian OMV, German RWE and Hungary's FGSZ. Gas to be produced within the second phase of Shah Deniz development, which is expected to obtain first gas in 2018, is considered as the main source for the project.