Tag: South Stream

While there is significant disagreement within the Kremlin about how to deal with Sofia's challenge, Moscow is running out of ways to push Bulgaria into fast-tracking its commitment to South Stream, says Stratfor.

Russia’s Gazprom and the Bulgarian government have reached a deal under which Bulgaria will commit to the developing the South Stream pipeline while simultaneously signing a long-term pricing agreement for Russian natural gas.

UK oil major BP said it was no longer considering shipping gas from its Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan through the Nabucco pipeline, dealing a blow to the troubled European project. But the European Commission said the “full-scale version” of Nabucco was still the main option under consideration.

The EU-favoured Nabucco natural gas pipeline is "in trouble," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in calling for support of its competitor, Russia Gazprom-backed South Steam project.

As long as the consortium managing the gas from Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan is ready and willing to guarantee supplies of gas to Italy via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Gazprom's South Stream project "is irrelevant", TAP Managing Director Kjetil Tungland told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

In a sign of mounting Russian pressure on Ukraine to share its pipeline network, Gazprom's chief executive has warned that procrastination in talks would result in a bad deal for Kyiv as construction of a competing pipeline would lead to a price slump.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced yesterday (6 September) the number of shares that EU companies will take in Russia's South Stream pipeline project, which is designed to deliver natural gas directly to Western Europe under the Black Sea.

Russian energy giant Gazprom held an event in Brussels yesterday (25 May) to promote its South Stream gas pipeline but failed to answer questions about the project, which is seen as a competitor to the EU's own Nabucco plan.

Central and Eastern European gas markets have long suffered from isolation and fragmentation, leaving them vulnerable to both supply disruptions and to monopoly pricing power. However, new research suggests that countries collectively negotiating with gas exporters could remedy this problem, argues economist and energy researcher Edward Hunter Christie.

Germany's Wintershall, a unit of the world's largest chemical company BASF, is set to join Russia's South Stream pipeline that will carry gas under the Black Sea to Europe, a source close to energy giant Gazprom announced on Friday (18 March).

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday (9 March) ordered an investigation into the possibility of building an LNG plant on the Black Sea coast, casting fresh doubts over the viability of Russia's South Stream gas pipeline.

EU officials are pushing for a merger of two strategic pipeline projects – Nabucco and its smaller Italian rival ITGI – to help secure gas supplies from Azerbaijan to Europe, according to news wire reports yesterday (17 February). The European Commission later confirmed it was encouraging projects in the 'Southern Gas Corridor' to cooperate.

The European Commission signalled yesterday (5 January) that it would press member states hard to deliver "concrete steps" towards the EU's goal of a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2020.

Following the publication of another batch of leaked US diplomatic cables revealed by Wikileaks, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Italian colleague and friend Silvio Berlusconi denied allegations of mafia-type connections.

The gas pipeline consortium that wins a deal to buy 10 billion cubic metres of Azeri gas next April will become the backbone of the Southern Gas Corridor, Kjetil Tungland, managing director of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borissov have agreed to set up a joint venture for the Bulgarian section of the South Stream pipeline, giving it a competitive edge over the competing Nabucco project supported by the EU. Dnevnik, EurActiv's partner in Bulgaria, contributed to this article.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told journalists yesterday (13 October) that he will seek to renegotiate the country's "unfair" gas agreement with Russia when he meets his counterpart Vladimir Putin on 27 October.

The final decision on investment in the Nabucco pipeline will definitely not be taken this year and has been  delayed until 2011 because gas supply talks with Azerbaijan are dragging on, an Austrian newspaper reported today (8 October).

The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) announced today (15 September) that the Shah Deniz II natural gas field in Azerbaijan is the initial target of gas intended for the project, designed to offer the shortest and most-cost-effective gas supply to Italy and European markets.

Russia and Bulgaria have established a framework of agreements regarding the Bulgarian section of the South Stream gas pipeline and new gas contracts. But the negotiation process is still far from over, write Ewa Paszyc and Tomasz Dąborowski for Polish think-tank the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in a July commentary.

Russia's threat to exclude Bulgaria from its planned South Stream gas pipeline has worked, Russian daily Kommersant wrote yesterday (7 July), as a Moscow envoy obtained Sofia's consent for a ''roadmap'' to speed up the Kremlin-favoured project. The USA reacted nervously.

Azerbaijan and Turkey yesterday (7 June) signed a deal to ship 11 billion cubic metres of Azeri gas per year to Turkey. Shipments would start in 2017 and some of the gas may be pumped into the EU's planned Nabucco pipeline. Meanwhile, Northern Iraq declared in Turkey that it stands ready to provide gas supplies "to make Nabucco work".

Italian energy company Edison is lobbying the European Commission for more support in upgrading existing infrastructure and building interconnectors from the Caspian to Italy, its representatives said on 26 April. This would allow the Nabucco gas pipeline to take over at a later stage, they claimed.

"Energy supply [...] should dominate the EU's overall security objectives for the immediate future, given its dependence on Russia," writes George Joffe, reserarch fellow at the Centre for International Studies at the University of Cambridge in an April paper.