Pravda: South Stream adding gas to the fire

The situation around the "South Stream" is getting increasingly tenser. While the EU is looking for leverage over Moscow in light of the developments in Ukraine and Crimea, Gazprom is confidently implementing its "South Stream" project, including land areas of individual EU countries. Of course, such self-confidence of the gas giant is adding fuel to the fire.

The European Union has issued numerous warnings about a potential termination of cooperation with Russia on "South Stream" gas pipeline. These statements are, of course, not particularly realistic because the European Union is too dependent on Russian gas, but we should not forget that Gazprom has quite notable competitors in North Africa, Iran and Azerbaijan. The volume of supply from these countries cannot be compared with the Russian gas giant, however, winter is coming to an end. This was mentioned by the European Commissioner for Energy Gunther Oettinger who stated the possibility of postponing the talks on the gas pipeline (it is tempting to add here "until the next cold season").

However, the Europeans have long been thinking about getting gas of non-Russian origin. They are considering three projects, Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Interconnector on the path Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI), and Nabucco. The latter project scheduled to transport gas from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan was frozen on June 28, 2013, after which the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline became the priority. ITGI was also doomed to failure because Shah Deniz consortium rejected the possibility of Azerbaijani gas supply to this artery.  MORE