Platts: Turkey wants to see both TAP, Nabucco West gas pipelines built: official

Turkey said Wednesday that it wants to see construction of both competing projects to carry Azerbaijani gas to Europe, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline from Turkey's border with Greece to Italy and the Nabucco West Pipeline from Turkey's border with Bulgaria to Austria.

In a brief intervention at a panel he was chairing in Ankara Wednesday, Ambassador Mithat Rende, director general of the Foreign Ministry's department for multilateral economic affairs and energy said: "In the long run, both of these pipelines will be necessary."

He was speaking less than two weeks after the backers of TAP and Nabucco West had submitted their bids to carry 10 billion cubic meters a year of Azerbaijani gas to European destinations. TAP wants to carry the bulk of the gas to a virtual hub in Italy; Nabucco West to carry some gas to Balkan states and the rest to the existing trading hub at Baumgarten.  MORE