Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 16 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
By 2015-2016, the White Stream pipeline will fill in some gaps currently exiting in Europe's gas supply, Director of the British White stream Pipeline Company, Roberto Pirani, said at an international conference in Baku.
The projects on Nabucco and White Stream are not competing with other. Nabucco and White Stream will complete each other and give incentives to construction of next pipelines," Pirani said.
According to Pirani, the pipelines are the incentive of investments in the Caspian region. The investments will be granted only if there are guarantees of access to Europe.
Pirani said that Azerbaijani gas is enough to implement the first phase of the White Stream project enabling to deliver 8 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The first phase of the White Stream project involves an investment worth $4 four billion.
The Southern Gas Corridor, which enjoys the support of the European Union, should not only include the Nabucco gas pipeline. It also implies pipelines White Stream and ITGI. The main aim of these pipelines is to meet Europe's gas demand amounting to 60 billion cubic meters by 2020, Pirani said.
According to Pirani, the pipeline projects should be considered only from the commercial side. They should not be viewed in a political perspective. "We do not want to repeat the situation that occurred between Ukraine and Russia," Pirani said.
The Nabucco project will be implemented before White Stream. "Nabuuco is a leading artery and we [White Stream] will be the artery following the Nabucco," Pirani added.
The White Stream project envisages transporting gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field to Europe and Ukraine via Georgia through the Black Sea. Under developers' conception, the pipeline would connect to the South-Caucasus gas pipeline near Tbilisi and pass 100 kilometers through Georgia to the Black Sea. From there, a 650 kilometers (400 mi) via the seabed of the Black Sea and via the Pheodosia connect to Ukraine's transit system roughly a 200 kilometers on offshore section. An alternative plan offers to extend the offshore pipeline to Romania.
At the first stage, capacity of the pipeline will be 8 billion cubic meters of gas each year. In this case, the gas pipeline will be supplied with gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field. Later, the White Stream can be connected to the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. In this case, the second line of the pipeline will be laid on the seabed and capacity will increase to 24-32 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
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