The Guardian has published an article about difficulties in implementation of Nabucco pipeline, entitled: "Europe's plan for alternative pipeline faces big problems".
The article reads:
"With its vast underground storage tanks and network of pipes, valves and tubes, Baumgarten in the flatlands east of Vienna is one of Europe's biggest gas hubs. The first gas to cross the iron curtain was pumped through thousands of miles of pipelines from Siberia and into western Europe 40 years ago, arriving at Baumgarten for resupply across the continent. The hub remains the most important junction today, matching Russia's huge mineral riches to Europe's gargantuan appetite for natural gas. But a new energy revolution is being plotted.
With the Kremlin and the giant Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom, locked in their annual spat with Ukraine, the main transit country for Europe's gas supplies, over prices and politics, Europe is desperately seeking ways to diminish its dependence on the 140bcm (billion cubic metres) of gas it currently imports from Russia. The most favoured, most ambitious and most contentious idea is to build a new pipeline beyond the grip of Gazprom, which controls 90,000 miles of gas delivery systems. Named after a Verdi opera, the Nabucco pipeline is supposed to terminate at Baumgarten, ultimately pumping 31bcm of Caspian gas through Turkey and the Balkans to Austria. "Diversification on the terrestrial route for gas is a must for Europe," says Alexandr Vondra, deputy prime minister of the Czech Republic, which has taken on the EU presidency and sees energy policy as a priority.
The plan, born in 2002, is to thread almost 2,400 miles of pipeline through the narrow geostrategic stretch between Russia and Iran, the two countries with the world's largest reserves of gas, to central Europe. "If we have a dominant company like Gazprom trying to influence all inroads of gas to Europe, we need to develop an alternative to the supply of gas from Russia," says a senior European commission official involved in energy policy. Given the worsening fallout from the Russia-Ukraine dispute as well as the impact of last August's Russia-Georgia war on Caspian energy security, the Europeans are trying to accelerate the Nabucco plans.
"We have good reason to believe that Nabucco will fly," says Reinhard Mitschek, who manages the Nabucco consortium of six national energy companies from the 21st floor of an office block above the Danube in Vienna. But the problems are formidable. European gas industry sources complain that EU officials are confusing political imperatives with economic, business and energy fundamentals. "This is an attempt at reverse engineering in pipeline development," said a senior industry source. "Usually you find the resource and then you build a pipeline. With Nabucco it's the other way round."
Pierre No
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