Tuesday, 27 January 2009A critical point has been reached in the Nabucco Project that was started with the initiatives of Turkey's Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) in February 2002.
The Nabucco project represents a new gas pipeline connecting the Caspian region, Middle East and Egypt via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary with Austria and further on with the Central and Western European gas markets.
The implementation of the Nabucco Project carries high importance for the European Union (EU) and Turkey. As such, both sides are focusing on the Budapest Summit for Nabucco Project on Tuesday.
The recent tension and disagreement between Russia and Ukraine on natural gas have forced EU countries to highly consider the Nabucco Project.
Turkey stresses on buying 15 percent of the gas to be carried through the Nabucco Project.
The Nabucco pipeline length is approximately 3,300 km, starting at the Georgian/Turkish and/or Iranian/Turkish border respectively, leading to Baumgarten in Austria. 1,998 km of the pipeline goes through Turkey.
A reasonable amount of the gas volumes, reaching Baumgarten, have to be further transported through Austria to the Central and Western European countries.
According to market studies, the pipeline has been designed to transport a maximum amount of 31 bcm/y.
Estimated investment costs including financing costs for a complete new pipeline system amount to approximately 7.9 billion Euro.
As an outcome of the feasibility study, it was decided to construct the pipeline in two major stages - first to construct the complete new route from Turkish borders to Baumgarten, and second to construct further compressor stations to increase capacity. At the same time, it was decided that construction step I would be technically split into two separate back-to-back construction phases:
The first construction phase, starting in 2011, will cover the planned route between Ankara and Baumgarten, corresponding to the construction of approximately 2,000 km of pipeline. After this phase, the existing pipeline facilities between the Turkish/Georgian and Iranian borders could be used for an interim period of 2 years, in order to link the new pipeline to the Turkish borders. This will enable the project to start operation and marketing of the pipeline to start in 2014 with an initial pipeline capacity up to 8 bcm, while the construction of the rest of the pipeline will be finished in parallel.
The second construction phase will run from 2014 until end 2015 and will consist of the construction of the remaining section between the Turkish border to Georgia resp. Iran and Ankara.
A following construction step II will consist of installation of further compression stations at key points of the pipeline in order to continuously increase the pipeline capacity up to 31 bcm/y.
A Legal Working Group is preparing partnership agreements, inter-governmental agreements, operation agreements and other relevant agreements in regard to the Nabucco Project.
Aside from BOTAS, Germany's RWE, Austria's OMV, Hungary's MOL, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, and Romanian Transgaz have shares in the Nabucco Project.
The Budapest Summit on Nabucco Project is expected to generate highly crucial decisions by member states (Turkey, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary).
High level representatives from the European Union (EU), United States, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Egypt and Georgia will also attend the Budapest Summit.
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Tuesday, 27 January 2009
ANKARA (A.A)
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