BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 29
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Slovakian natural gas carrier Eustream has not abandoned the construction of the new Eastring gas pipeline, which can also connect to the Southern Gas Corridor, Trend reports.
“This is despite the fact that the binding demand for this pipeline from gas suppliers is currently not high. In our opinion, the importance of connecting south-eastern and western Europe, which is the essence of the Eastring project, will increase in the long term. Therefore, we did not cancel this project despite the current lack of the binding demand, "said Pavol Kubík, a spokesman for the Eustream company told vEnergetike.sk portal.
Eastring will transport natural gas from different areas and alternative sources. At the first stage, it will provide the Balkans and/or even Turkey with gas from the European gas market. At the final stage, when its bi-directional mode should be in place, Eastring will transit prospective Romanian Black Sea natural gas, Caspian and Middle East natural gas to Europe.
Eastring is the only project that offers direct bidirectional routing between the developed EU markets and the South-East Europe/Balkan/Turkey - region with strong potential to be a major gas hub.
The pipeline capacity will be available for all shippers/sources (including natural gas transported via the Southern Gas Corridor) on the transparent and non-discriminatory basis.
The project was enlisted in the 3rd list of PCIs which European Commission published in November 2017.
There is significant potential for the delivery of gas via the Southern Gas Corridor to Europe through the Eastring gas pipeline.
“Eastring project is not linked to any supplier. Therefore, it will be open for every source on the non-discriminatory basis in full compliance with EU legislation. In this context, we believe there is a significant potential towards Caspian region and Southern Gas Corridor route,” Kubik earlier told Trend.
The Eastring pipeline should pass through Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria to Turkey.
Over the past two years, Eustream has made progress in discussions with potential partners from other European countries, which have confirmed that there is a demand for the interconnection between Central and South-Eastern Europe.
Eastring gas pipeline should have a projected technical capacity of 20 billion cubic meters in the initial phase of the project, with possibility of expanding to up to 40 billion cubic meters in the final stage. Depending on the routing decision, its length should be around 1,200 kilometers with two-way pipelines.
Initially, it was planned to start the pipeline’s construction in 2022. The first phase is expected to be completed in 2025. The estimated investment cost for the first phase of the project ranges between 1.14 billion-1.52 billion euros.
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