Rival Gas Pipelines: South Stream Holds the Advantage
Rival Gas Pipelines: South Stream Holds the Advantage

Summary/Abstract: Has South Stream dealt Nabucco a killer blow? This was the question put this January to Christian Egenhofer, head of energy research at the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels-based think tank dealing with EU issues, apropos of Serbia having followed Bulgaria’s example in striking an agreement with Russia to participate in the gas pipeline project initiated by the latter. “Nabucco never even existed, but was merely a political idea to lessen Europe’s dependence on Russia,” replied Egenhofer, a stinging response given that European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, the “spiritual leader” of the Nabucco gas pipeline project that bypasses Russia, let the world know through his spokesman in February that Nabucco is a European enterprise that enjoys the active backing of Brussels. The idea for building the gas pipeline - which takes its name from a Verdi opera – reportedly came from US President George W. Bush back in 2002. Although preparations began in 2004, the project became more serious only with the outbreak of the gas price war between Moscow and Kiev in the cold January of 2006. The skirmishing resulted in Gazprom temporarily shutting off deliveries to Ukraine, and the resulting shortfall was also felt by Western buyers of Russian gas; without mincing matters, the Ukrainians began tapping into transit deliveries. The ministerial summit held in Vienna in the summer of 2006 can be regarded as the official start of the Nabucco project. At that time, construction was planned to start in 2007; subject to completion of the building work over several stages, it is envisioned that the pipeline will eventually carry an annual 30 billion cubic metres of natural gas along a total length of 3,300 kilometres. The project’s designers originally counted on the participation of five states: Turkey as the pipeline’s originating country; Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary fulfilling the role of transit states; and Austria as the controller of the entire enterprise.[…]

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