Visiting Nabucco Executive Makes Secret Deals With Oil Companies – Azeri Daily

The following is the text of Leyla report by opposition Azerbaijani Yeni Musavat on 7 March headlined “Time for the construction of Nabucco gas pipeline is set” and subheaded “Oil and gas resources of Asian countries will be pumped to European markets through Azerbaijan”

A number of contracts necessary for the activities of the Nabucco gas pipeline were signed in Baku on 5 March. Even a date has been set for the construction of the gas pipeline. However, details are not made public as the contracts are kept in secret. In an interview with the press, the director-general of the Nabucco project, Reinhard Mitschek, said that one of the key objectives of constructing the pipeline is to synchronize gas production and supplies with its export.

“Therefore, we deemed it important to meet both gas producer and gas exporting companies. As I signed secret contracts I cannot tell you the names of those companies. A relevant point of the article stipulates that we do not yet make public the schedule of the project.”

Mitschek believes that the reason for keeping secret details is that not all the issues have been elaborated: “The public will be informed once everything is elaborated.”

Incidentally, it is already known that the head of the Nabucco project has had intensive talks with SOCAR [the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic]. At the same time, it is also known when the pipeline will be commissioned.

R. Mitschek said that the dates had been synchronized with the Sah Daniz project: “To merge both projects, we have chosen the year of 2013 for effectively beginning gas export. The construction of the gas pipeline will be commenced in 2010.”

It is worth saying that the Nabucco gas pipeline is to deliver carbohydrate resources of Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) on to European markets via Azerbaijan. The project is designed to share commercial risk for the European market as well as minimize Europe’s dependence on Russian gas. As the main energy supplier of Europe Russia uses this as a permanent means of pressure. Both the European Union and the USA support the implementation of such a project to protect the market from the Russian pressure.

The Nabucco is designed to be laid bypassing Russia and Iran. Experts explain this with the fact that Iran is an enemy of the USA and has no normal relations with several European countries.

Experts believe that the implementation of the project is economically profitable for Azerbaijan: “Given this, Azerbaijan will benefit from the export of its oil and gas resources to European markets, as well as earn extra profits as a transit country. Russia is against the implementation of the project. The Kremlin is trying to hinder this through alternative projects. A large contract was recently signed among Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to this end. The contract envisages the transit of Turkmen and Kazakh gas to European markets via Russia.”

Originally published by Yeni Musavat, Baku in Azeri 7 Mar 08 p 10.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Central Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.