Bosnian Federation Reaches Out to Nabucco
The Bosnian Muslim-Croat federation has asked for Turkey's assistance in help to diversify its sources of natural gas supply.
Bosnian gas distributor BH-Gas has asked Turkey's Botas, a partner in the Nabucco natural gas pipeline project, to help it connect to the EU-backed pipeline.
Bosnia, which is made up of two autonomous regions, the Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb Republic, is dependent on Russian supplies of gas via Ukraine, Hungary and Serbia to get some 350 million cubic metres of gas that it needs annually.
Almir Becarevic, the general manager of BH-Gas, said that Bosnia needed to diversify supply sources and wanted to join the pipelines operated by Botas, such as Nabucco and the Transadriatic Pipeline (TAP) bringing gas from the Caspian basin, reported Reuters.
"For safety reasons, we need to have the possibility of supplies from two directions - from Nabucco in the north and from the TAP in the south," Becarevic told a news conference he called together with Batos General Manager Fazil Senel.
Bosnia's Serb Republic, which has close ties with Serbia and Russia, agreed in March with Russian pipeline gas export monopoly Gazprom, to join the competing South Stream project.
It plans to build a 480 km (298 miles) pipeline along the Sava River in northern Bosnia with capacity of up to 1.5 billion cubic metres and link it to the South Stream pipeline in neighbouring Serbia.
The Muslim-Croat federation, where BH-Gas is based, has also been offered the chance to join South Stream at a later date.
Becarevic said Bosnia needed access to both South Stream and Nabucco. He asked for support from Turkish pipeline operator Botas for the construction of a 250-km pipeline network linked with Croatia in the north, enabling it to connect to Nabucco via an interconnection being built towards Hungary.
Botas could also help Bosnia connect to the TAP in the south via Croatia, Becarevic said. TAP bring gas from the Caspian basin and the Middle East through Greece and Italy to western Europe.
Botas General Manager Fazil Senel said the two companies would sign a memorandum on cooperation at the end of September, after their expert teams agreed on technical details.
"We have discussed some ideas on how Bosnia could take part in the construction of a future gas pipeline" that would connect gas from the Caspian basin to Europe, Senel said. "We support Bosnia to take part in these projects."
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