Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Kommersant: Armenia Is Pulled To Nabucco

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Kommersant: Armenia Is Pulled To Nabucco

    KOMMERSANT: ARMENIA IS PULLED TO NABUCCO

    ArmInfo
    2009-09-07 14:39:00

    ArmInfo. Reconciliation which started between Armenia and Turkey
    has given an unexpected result. At the end of the last week they in
    Ankara started to talk about Yerevan's joining Nabucco energy project,
    September 7 issue of Kommersant Russian newspaper writes. 'Though the
    experts admit such a possibility taking into account the unstable
    political situation in Georgia, Azerbaijan, which is considered to
    be a resource base for Nabucco, is the main obstacle on the way of
    turning Armenia into a transit country. Baku has already claimed that
    opening of the Armenian-Turkish border in the conditions of pendency
    of the Karabakh problem conflicts with its interests. It means that
    Azerbaijan will never agree to the idea of transportation of its gas
    through Armenia without the Karabakh conflict settlement acceptable
    for it.

    Assumptions about the possible joining of Yerevan to the big energy
    projects started to appear in the foreign mass media just after
    the information about the forthcoming reconciliation of Armenia and
    Turkey. Star Turkish newspaper said on Friday, quoting the diplomatic
    sources, that Ankara may support Yerevan's joining Nabucco, where
    Armenia may replace Georgia being unstable in the political aspect. The
    Azerbaijani Ekspress quoted Head of the Baku Center of Economic and
    Political Research who supposed that 'EU may require introduction
    of technical changes in Nabucco for the latter to pass not through
    Georgia but through Armenia', the newspaper says. President of
    "Turksam" Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic
    Analysis Sinan Ogan told Kommersant that such a scenario is quite
    real. 'During signing of a protocol on preliminary agreement on
    resumption of diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia,
    Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandyan gave to understand
    that his country is ready to take part in all the energy projects
    of the South Caucasus. Although he did not named Nabucco, everybody
    understood what was the point. EU and the USA want to specify Nabucco
    route till late 2009, therefore, Ankara started to prepare a protocol
    of restoration of diplomatic relations at the heightened rates.

    To recall, the 3,300 kilometres (2,050 mi) long pipeline will run from
    Erzurum in Turkey via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to Baumgarten an
    der March, a major natural gas hub in Austria. Construction of the
    pipeline is expected to begin in 2010 and is planned to be finished
    in 2014.[25] It estimated to cost around ?7.9 billion.[26][27] The
    company leading the project is OMV. The project is developed by the
    Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH. The managing director of the
    company is Reinhardt Mitschek.[28] The shareholders of the company are:
    OMV (Austria) MOL (Hungary) Transgaz (Romania) Bulgargaz (Bulgaria)
    BOTAS (Turkey) RWE (Germany)

    Each of the shareholders hold 16.67% of the shares.

    In the meanwhile, Chairman of ArmRusgasprom CJSC Board Karen Karapetyan
    told The Kommersant that development of local energy projects in
    the Transcaucasus is in question and Nabucco is not among these
    projects so far. Nevertheless, the possible supply of Russian gas
    to Turkey and the Iran gas to Armenian power stations in exchange
    for electricity supply to Iran is currently discussed. In addition,
    Head of Gazprom Aleksey Miller stated earlier that SWAP operations
    are possible between Iran and Turkey. In case the Armenian-Turkish
    border is opened gas may be supplied just via Armenia.
Working...
X