Nabucco starts to shape up

The EU and Turkey have resolved two major differences that were preventing agreement on the terms for the Nabucco natural gas pipeline, and the Turkish President Abdullah Gul is reported to have promised that a signing ceremony will take place on June 25 in Ankara.

Principals behind the Nabucco project, on the drawing-boards for years, intend to build the 3,300-kilometer pipeline from the eastern border of Turkey through the Balkans to the Baumgarten gas hub in Austria, where national energy company OMV leads the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International consortium. Other members of the consortium are Botas (Turkey), Bulgargaz (Bulgaria), Transgaz (Romania), MOL (Hungary), and RWE (Germany).
The two problems that were solved in Prague last week involved pricing and the legal regime for Turkish consumption of gas flowing through the pipeline. The EU had insisted that Turkey pay the equivalent of European prices; Turkey had proposed a figure 15% less than that. The common-sense resolution that was adopted provides for Turkey’s price to be based on the cost of transportation: the gas consumed in Turkey will hardly go all the way to Baumgarten, so it will cost less. As for the legal regime, the EU has abandoned its insistence that the norms of its acquis communautaire apply in Turkey, a non-member of the European body, and a middle ground within Turkish law has been found.

Asia Times