Nabucco confirms two-feeder routing cuts Iran
Christopher E. Smith
OGJ Pipeline Editor
HOUSTON, Aug. 23 -- Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GMBH confirmed that feeder lines into the natural gas pipeline would run to the Turkish-Georgian and Turkish-Iraqi borders and ordered engineering works for these two lines. Nabucco, however, cited political concerns in tabling a third potential feeder line to the Turkish-Iranian border. The announcements came following the pipeline’s latest steering committee meeting in Ankara.
The two-feeder routing plan offers Nabucco access to supplies from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Iraq.
In April European Union Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger touted the importance of Turkmenistan as a gas supplier to Europe through a southern Caspian corridor. Other southern corridor projects cited by Oettinger as part of the EU’s efforts to diversify supply sources away from Russia include the White Stream pipeline from Georgia and the Interconnector among Turkey, Greece, and Italy (ITGI). Parties to the ITGI signed a memorandum of understanding on the project in June, with the 804-km line expected to enter service in 2015 (OGJ Online, June 21, 2010).
The 56-in. OD Nabucco pipeline will bring gas to the Baumgarten hub in Austria near the Slovakian border at a rate of 31 billion cu m/year, before moving it on to Western Europe. Feasibility studies have led to a two-stage construction plan. The first phase, starting in 2011, calls for 2,000 km of pipe between Ankara, Turkey, and Baumgarten, allowing 8 billion cu m/year of gas from the existing Turkish pipeline network to be transported through the line by 2014 (OGJ, Feb. 15, 2010, p. 48). Second-stage construction would begin in 2012 and build eastward from Ankara to the Iraqi and Georgian borders, bringing total pipeline length to 3,300 km.
Nabucco has six equal shareholders: Turkey's Botas, Bulgarian Energy Holding EAD, Romania's Transgaz, Hungary's MOL, Austria's OMV, and Germany's RWE.
Nabucco estimates total pipeline cost at €7.9 billion.
Contact Christopher E. Smith at [email protected].