Samuel Lussac: To become true, Nabucco has to be commercially viable

PhD Candidate in International Relations with the Bordo-based Institute of Political Studies Samuel Lussac says that Nabucco has a chance to exist if the project proves to be financially profitable.

Lussac believes that the year 2010 will be a breakthrough for Nabucco thus supporting the view of the Director of the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International Reinhard Mitchek.

“2010 will definitely be a breakthrough for Nabucco. And the less I can say is that Reinhard Mitchek's statement was a bit surprising compared to his previous ones. He said that the Nabucco project now lies in the hands of its potential clients and these will decide its fate. To make it short, if these clients decide to buy gas from the Caspian to be transported through Nabucco, then this project will come to reality. If not, it will disappear like other projects before (the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project in 1999 for instance). This statement differs from the previous one because, until now, Mitchek was very confident about the implementation of Nabucco,” the expert said.

“This decrease (not to say lack) of confidence is due to the several events that gas markets have encountered in the last few months. First, due to the recession, gas consumption in Europe has decreased, making the implementation of Nabucco less urgent. Then, the development of new technologies to produce shallow gas in the United States deeply changed the deal. It is now possible to exploit gas difficult to access in the latter but also in Poland and in Germany. This is very likely to make these countries less dependent on gas exports. Thus, the need for Nabucco may decrease.”

“To sum up, the situation for the Nabucco project has deteriorated. This project still faces structural problems (lack of investments, too much division among its European backers) and now has to deal with these conjonctural issues. Its future is still at stake and lies in the hands of its clients. To become true, Nabucco has to be commercially viable. For the moment, it seems it is not the case yet, especially compared to its other Western competitors (ITGI or TAP for instance),” the expert noted.

T. Teymur