Europe may finance Trans Caspian gas pipeline

The European financial institutions, especially the European Investment Bank may finance the Trans Caspian gas pipeline project, the Energy Department of the European Commission said.

"The European Financial Institutions, mainly the European Investment Bank, could potentially leverage support to infrastructure projects, such as Trans Caspian gas pipeline via loans and guaranties," a source in the European Commission told Trend on Wednesday.

The source added that the Trans-Caspian-Pipeline negotiations are underway.

EU Special Representative for Central Asia Pierre More said that the EU is "willing to fund a good part of the prospective Trans-Caspian gas pipeline."

He stressed that while the EU takes no position on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, the TCP would lie in the undisputed territorial waters of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

Moreover, a precedent for such projects has already been set by agreements between Russia and Kazakhstan, both Caspian littoral states, for offshore platforms in the northern Caspian Sea.

In September, 2011 the EU Council gave a mandate for the negotiations between the EU, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to build the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline.

Trans-Caspian gas pipeline running to around 300 kilometres will be laid from the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijani, where it will be linked to the Southern Gas Corridor. The negotiations between Turkmenistan and the EU and other countries on the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline have been on-going since the late 1990s.

The Southern Gas Corridor' is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It is designed to diversify the routes and sources of supply and thereby increase the energy security of the EU.


/Trend/