EU confident of significant Azerbaijani gas volumes to flow to Europe

The European Commission is confident of opening of the Southern Gas Corridor, but it is primarily up to the Shah Deniz Consortium to decide to whom they want to sell their gas, Reuters reported with reference to the Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger.

"I am sure there will be interesting volumes of gas from the Caspian region to Europe," Oettinger told in an interview.

The partners of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field development project should make a decision regarding preferable transportation route soon. All three pipelines within the Southern Gas Corridor (Nabucco, TAP and ITGI), designed to transport Azerbaijani gas to the European countries, have already submitted their final proposals to Azerbaijan.

Nabucco gas pipeline has been always regarded as the EU's priority project, which will enable to diversify energy supply routes and sources, and increase energy security of the European countries. Oettinger said that he believes in the route that the EU hopes can transport non-Russian gas to the southern Europe. However, he added that since the inception of the Nabucco project, much has changed in the global gas market, including the commercial viability of unconventional gas from shale.

"Investment in infrastructure is not as bankable as it was five years ago," Oettinger said.
The Commission has already said it was receptive to talks on combining pipelines competing to bring gas from Shah Deniz.


/Trend/