Nabucco Pipeline
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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected pipeline. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the pipeline approaches, and more information becomes available. |
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The Nabucco pipeline is a proposed natural gas pipeline that is planned to transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. Some consider the pipeline as a diversion from the current methods of importing natural gas solely from Russia.
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[edit] Description of the pipeline
Construction of the 3,300-kilometer pipeline is expected to begin in 2008 and is planned to be finished until 2011. The construction work, estimated to cost 4.6 billion EUR (5.8 billion USD), is to be shared between the five gas companies in each of the countries. The company leading the project is OMV from Austria. The transport capacity of the pipeline will reach up to 30 billion cubic meters per year in the long term, around or after 2020.
The Nabucco project is included in the EU Trans-European Energy Network programme [1]
[edit] Sources of supply
Nabucco Pipeline will be connected near Erzurum with the Tebriz (Iran) - Erzurum pipeline, and with the South Caucasus Pipeline, connecting Nabucco Pipeline with the planned Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline. Once completed, it would allow transportation of natural gas from producers in the Middle East and Caspian region such as Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to Western Europe and to the countries along its path. The western end of the pipeline will be Baumgarten an der March, a major natural gas hub in Austria.
[edit] Shareholders
The shareholders of Nabucco pipeline project are:
French companies Gaz de France and Total, and German E.ON Ruhrgas and RWE are interested to get a stakes in the pipeline.[1] It's possible that also Russian Gazprom could be proposed to participate in Nabucco project.
[edit] Construction and operation schedule
A feasibility study for the Nabucco pipeline has been performed under an EU project grant. A 2006 EU document [2] reports that the project has entered the authorisation stage. The construction can begin in 2008 and may be finished in 2010.
In early years after completion the deliveries are expected to be between 4.5 and 13 billion cubic meters per year, of which 2 to 8 billion cubic meters per year to Baumgarten an der March, Austria, one of the major European natural gas hubs. Later, approximately half of the capacity is expected to be delivered to Baumgarten and half of the natural gas is to serve the markets en-route. The transmission volume of around 2020 is expected to reach 25.5 to 31 billion cubic meters per year, of which up to 16 billion to Baumgarten hub [3].
[edit] Alternative project
Gazprom has proposed an alternative project competing Nabucco Pipeline by constructing a second section of the Blue Stream pipeline beneath the Black Sea to Turkey, and extending this up through Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia to western Hungary.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Energy TEN home page; Nabucco is on the priority axis NG3
- ^ Commission staff working paper TEN, August 2006
- ^ Nabucco project presentation Belgrade, OMV Nabucco team, October 2005
[edit] External links
- Investors lured by the sound of Nabucco Pipeline, by Energia.gr 4 January 2006
- Nabucco gas pipeline is approved, by BBC 27 June 2006
- Gazprom's grip on Western Europe tightens with pipelines to Hungary, by Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune 22 June 2006
- EU TEN-E document in PDF format (see pages 30--31) .
