Competition for Europe’s southern gas corridor escalates

After two leading pipeline projects said they would welcome co-operation with the Trans Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP), which aims to pump Azeri gas through Turkey, competition to build Europe's southern gas corridor has intensified.

Three international consortia - Nabucco, TAP, and ITGI - are competing to build the infrastructure to carry gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II gas field to Europe. The TAP and ITGI gas pipeline projects both welcomed co-operation with TANAP, potentially providing the missing link in transporting the Azeri gas through Turkey and into Europe.

"TAP will be happy to work with the developers of TANAP for any required co-ordination between the two pipelines, thus providing a fully integrated solution for the delivery of Caspian gas to Europe," TAP's External Affairs Director Michael Hoffmann stated.

"For TAP it is important to have the Turkish transit piece concluded, and ... TANAP is an ideal transportation solution within Turkey for the delivery of Caspian gas to the western border of Turkey with Europe," he added.

With its initial capacity of 16 billion m3/yr (6 billion m³ set aside for Turkey and 10 billion m³ for the rest of Europe), the TANAP pipeline would run from Azerbaijan to the Turkish border with Bulgaria. The project is designed to be expandable to 30 billion m³ and ultimately 60 billion m³.

TAP would carry 10 billion m³ of Caspian gas a year along a 800 km route, starting at Komotini near the Greek-Turkish border, going through Greece and Albania, and ending near San Foca in Italy.

TAP's partners include Norway's Statoil, Swiss EGL, and Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas, and Statoil is also a partner in Shah Deniz II, alongside BP.

The ITGI group has issued a statement in which it said its project was linkable with TANAP.

"The ITGI project starting at the Turkish-Greek border is fully compliant with any option to transit Azeri gas through Turkey, including TANAP," Elio Ruggeri, CEO of IGI Poseidon, the project's operator, said.

ITGI plans to transport 10 billion m³/yr of gas from the Turkish/Greek border to Italy, and its main partners are Italy's Edison, Greece's government controlled DEPA, and Turkey's Botas.

This all follows after Germany's RWE, a major partner in Nabucco, said the TANAP "option ... needs to be explored." While the German energy giant said it would hold on to its existing pipeline plans, it also said it was open to new co-operations.

The US$ 5 billion TANAP pipeline would effectively duplicate Nabucco in Turkey, and some form of co-operation between Nabucco and TANAP could bring cost reductions, give TANAP the desired Western European partners while building a network under European regulations, to the delight of many Western European companies and the EU.

"Turkey is only an observer of the European community. That means it does not have to implement EU energy law," Marlene Holzner, a spokeswoman for the European Commission said.

"However, we as the EU commission, hope that for any pipeline, there will be created an international government agreement between all member states which reflects certain principles," she added.

All pipeline projects in the region fall into the southern gas corridor, a project promoted by the EU to diversify its gas supplies away from Russia through finding new sources in central Asia. Currently, focus is on pumping Azerbaijan's gas from its Shah Deniz II field into Europe because deals with Iraq, Turkmenistan and Iran are not likely in the near future.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/26012012/competition_for_europe%E2%80%99s_southern_gas_corridor_escalates-/