InternationalIs there a place for Armenia in regional energy projects?
Nabucco is seen as one of Europe’s best hopes for limiting its dependence on Russian gas
Published: Thursday February 05, 2009
The Nabucco project would take natural gas from Erzurum to Austria. Some of that gas would come from the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline, which runs in the same corridor as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. But additional capacity is needed. Additional gas could flow from Turkmenistan or Azerbaijan through a new pipeline. The route shown through Karabakh and Armenia is among the options. Armenian Reporter map
Yerevan - Over the last several years, pipelines extending from the Caspian Sea toward Europe have bypassed the shortest possible route - through Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh - because both Azerbaijan and Turkey have been opposed to Armenia's participation in regional projects. Their opposition to these projects - including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline - has come about in the absence of a final resolution of the Karabakh conflict.
A "solution" for Azerbaijan and Turkey entails a return to the status quo ante, which Armenia has categorically opposed. Former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, putting aside diplomatic language, once openly stated that Armenia's involvement in regional projects would come with a price tag, which was Nagorno-Karabakh, and Armenia would never pay that price.,
The five-day war of August 2008 illustrated that Georgia, which was seen by the West as the safest transit country for transporting Caspian energy, is not a very stable state. Europe is opposed to transporting Caspian energy through the two other routes - a northern route through Russia and a southern route through Iran. The concern is that Russia will use oil and gas as a political weapon.
With the recent Russian-Ukrainian row over natural gas, the Nabucco gas pipeline plan once again came to the top of the agenda. The European Union continues to support the project as a way to diversify energy sources, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a video message to the participants in a Nabucco summit held at the end of January in Budapest.
"We remain excessively vulnerable regarding gas delivery to the European Union and other neighboring countries. So Nabucco must continue to move ahead," Mr. Barroso said.
The Nabucco pipeline, which will cost more than 8 billion euros to build, is planned as a way to transport natural gas from the Caspian region to Austria. Construction is expected to begin in 2010 and to finish by 2014. The pipeline will have a maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic meters per year. Nabucco shareholders are the Austrian OMV, Hungarian MOL, Bulgarian Bulgargaz, Romanian Transgaz, Turkish Botas, and German RWE, with a 16.7 percent stake each.
Euronews, reporting on this issue, did not exclude the possibility of Nabucco passing through the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
The main sources of gas for the Nabucco pipeline are expected to be Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The second stage of the Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian shelf of Azerbaijan will be coming on-stream in 2013. There is an agreement for 8 bcm of natural gas per annum with further expansion. Turkmenistan would provide for Nabucco 10 bcm of gas annually, which could be transported through Iran or across the Caspian Sea via the planned Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline.
The Nabucco gas pipeline project is not a political issue for Azerbaijan, but a commercial one, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with the Hungarian media, ITAR-TASS reported. "Azerbaijan supports the project, but its role in the project is not known - whether it will be transitory country or gas supplier," Mr. Aliyev said.
"Perspectives of the project are important for Azerbaijan. The country can partake in many other projects and on this base it will make a decision which gas pipeline is more realistic," he added, noting that existing gas pipelines connect Azerbaijan with Turkey, Georgia, Iran, and Russia.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU commissioner for external relations and European Neighborhood Policy, during a January 19-22 visit to the Caucasus, was to "strongly focus on energy issues and the EU's interest in the development of a southern gas corridor to bring gas from Azerbaijan and Central Asia to the EU," according to her office.
Reinhard Mitschek, the managing director of the Nabucco pipeline, told RFE/RL, "the prospects for the Nabucco gas pipeline are excellent. Gas consumption in Europe will increase in the coming years and decades. At present, there are three main sources of gas for Europe - one is Russia, the second is the North Sea, and the third is North Africa," he said. It is estimated that Europe would need 150-160 billion cubic meters more gas annually by 2020 and the Nabucco could provide 31 billion cubic meters of this need.
On January 19, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Turkey may withdraw from the Nabucco project if the country's EU accession talks remain blocked. However, later that same day he stated that Turkey supports the Nabucco pipeline and would never use it as a weapon in political disputes. "We don't want to live in heat when others are freezing," Mr. Erdogan said to Mr. Barroso, the European Commission President, during a joint press conference in Brussels.
Mr. Barroso said, "I really believe that we have here a great field for cooperation between Turkey and the European Union. The EU has a very important market for energy, Turkey is a crucial country for transit, also because of its geography, and I think that there is a win-win situation here."
In some European nations, there is a sense that Russia is a direct threat to the Nabucco project, and that the Kremlin will do everything in its power to be the main gas supplier for Europe.
Top Russian representatives have expressed doubts as to the feasibility of the EU-favored pipeline. "Nabucco could be a monument to great ambitions and actions not thought through properly," Viktor Zubkov, Russia's first deputy prime minister said in Budapest. Mr. Zubkov is also chairperson of the board of directors of the gas giant Gazprom.
