/ world today news/ The European Union has so far not decided through which country it will receive the gas, which in the future Russia, after abandoning the transit through Ukraine, intends to supply via “Turkish Stream” to Turkey’s border with the EU, he said a German consultant to Gazprom on European issues told journalists.
According to political scientist Alexander Rar, “the EU still does not have a clear strategy in this area – which side to bet on”.
“It seems to me that the EU understands that providing the southeast of Europe with gas is a primary problem and it must be solved. How? Now there are negotiations, agreements. That’s how I understand it. I hear from expert circles that an option for the construction of this gas pipeline – Eastring – the gas from “Turkish Stream” can also end up there, the political scientist noted.
The project for the Eastring gas pipeline prepared by Slovakia can be implemented with the participation of countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, as well as the EU (as a whole, note), noted Rar.
The capacity of Eastring in the first stage of operation can be 20 billion cubic meters per year, and then reach 40 billion. A feature of the project may be the possibility of two-way delivery in reversible mode from the north and west to the Balkan countries. Investment costs for the first stage are planned between 1.14 and 1.52 billion euros.
“But the question is who will pay for its construction? Russia has money to build pipelines together with partners, and other countries, as we saw in the case of Nabucco, do not. Algeria does not. We need companies that build. I was amazed , when I heard from senior EU representatives that this money can be found in the Juncker fund (the European Fund for Strategic Investments, created on the initiative of Jean-Claude Juncker, note. ). other places, first of all in this same Greece,” said Rar.
“For now, I don’t see any other sources, because the big companies are building these pipelines, in which they are 100% confident,” noted the Gazprom consultant.
“For South Stream there was a consortium, for Nord Stream it also worked, but for Nabucco it didn’t work. TANAP – there is, but it’s a smaller branch. And for all the others – I don’t know, we’ll see, I’m not saying there won’t be any, but a lot of attention should also be paid to the commercial side of development,” concluded Rar. / RIA Novosti
Brussels / Belgium
#gas #Russia
