Azerbaijan, Baku, April 15 / Trend A.Badalova /
It is extremely likely that both pipelines - Nabucco West and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will be built in the long-term perspective, Alexander Jackson, the analyst for political risk at Menas Associates in London, focusing on Caspian energy and political issues believes.
"Azerbaijan has plenty of gas over the medium and long term from fields like Absheron, Umid-Babek, and Zafar-Mashal," Jackson wrote Trend in an e-mail.
According to the analyst, Iraqi gas, Eastern Mediterranean gas, Black Sea gas and Turkmen gas could also be potential volumes for these pipelines.
"There's certainly no supply shortage, so it is likely that both pipelines could be built - but only in the long term," Jackson added.
Currently two pipelines - Nabucco West and TAP are competing for transporting Azerbaijani gas to the European markets. The gas which will be produced within the second stage of Azerbaijani Shah Deniz gas condensate field development is considered as the main source for these pipelines projects.
In March Nabucco West and TAP submitted their final offer to the Shah Deniz Consortium. The transportation offers include substantial information about the technical, regulatory, financial and other aspects of the projects.
The final decision on the European pipeline is expected to be made by end of June 2013.
According to Jackson, if Nabucco West is chosen as a final transportation route, in the medium term, it would simply have its capacity expanded to 31 billion cubic metres (bcm), which would absorb most of the supply.
"It's unlikely that an alternative pipeline would be seriously planned for at least a decade," Jackson added.
Nabucco West is a short-cut version of the Nabucco project, which envisages construction of the pipeline from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria (Baumgarten). The project's current shareholders are Bulgarian Energy Holding (17.38%), Romanian Transgaz (17.38%), Turkish Botas (17.38%), Austrian OMV (34.76%), and Hungary's FGSZ (13.11%).
The TAP project is designed to transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into Western Europe. TAP's shareholders are AXPO of Switzerland (42.5 percent), Norway's Statoil (42.5 percent) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15 percent).
