Shakh Deniz not for Nabucco

In spite of predicted failure, the European gas pipeline project Nabucco, with the consistency of its historical prototype, continues producing new events which develop its lobbying.

On the 15th of October Hungary and Romania announced the opening of a 47-kilometre section of pipeline connecting their gas systems. Together with a Romanian pipeline, 60 kilometres of it will be a part of the Nabucco project. But companies of these countries, MOL Group and Transgaz, hope to create an integrated gas market in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.

At the same time, the main movers of the Nabucco project - Germany's RWE and Austria's OMV - postponed their decision on financial participation in the project until next year. They cited the non-agreement of Turkey to allow foreign companies to construct on the territory of the country as the reason for this decision .

Such an explanation looks very odd, as it was planned that the pipeline would be built by local companies in every country, after which all the sections would be united into one pipeline.

EU money is supposed to compensate the costs of the countries participating in the project and to guarantee payment of bank credits. As a result, Nabucco still does not have a clear financial programme for its realization.

According to the preliminary plans, the gas pipeline should start operating in 2015, despite having no dependable sources of gas. Long negotiations between RWE and Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have yielded no results. The biggest hope of Nabucco - Azerbaijan's Shakh Deniz gas field - can only start delivering gas in 2017. At the same time, it is planned to implement the second stage of gas infrastructure development in the Caspian .

The head of the corporate communications department of RWE Supply and Trading, Michael Rosen, said that "investment decisions and construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline will be synchronized with the terms of the realization of gas."

All this means that construction of Nabucco could be postponed from 2015 to 2016 to get ready for Azerbaijani gas. But we cannot be sure about that, as Russia's Gazprom and Italian and Greek gas companies will also participate in tendering for buying Azerbaijani gas.

Nabucco is only one of the players trying to get Azerbaijani gas. The second stage of Shakh Deniz is to divide and share gas on the basis of Azerbaijan's economic interests, related with political ones, such as a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Yevgeny Krishtalev, exclusively for VK.