Predicting Nabucco's Demise
Earlier this week, comments attributed to Ambassador Richard Morningstar, the U.S. Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, appeared to indicate that the US had conceded that the EU backed Nabucco gas pipeline was no longer the favoured method of transport for Azeri gas to Europe. (Read: Are Morningstar's Comments a Foreshadowing of Nabucco's Fate?)
The U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan subsequently went into damage control mode, clarifying what it stated were "inaccurate media accounts" of od Ambassador Morningstar's remarks. (Read: US Attempts to Clarify Morningstar's Comments)
Irrespective, speculation about Nabucco's impending demise has increased. The Wall Street Journal contributes with Nabucco Pipeline’s Prospects Dim:
Weeks before a consortium of Caspian Sea natural-gas producers is due to choose one of four planned pipelines to carry its gas to Europe, prospects for the European Union's favored Nabucco project appear to be dwindling.
This week, Azerbaijan said it plans to build its own pipeline through Turkey that would run parallel to Nabucco’s planned route. At the same time, the U.S. softened its yearslong support for Nabucco, saying it now backs any of the now four alternatives so long as they will deliver gas to the most "vulnerable" EU states.
In planning since 2002, Nabucco is an ambitious project to build a 2,400-mile (3,900-kilometer) pipeline that would carry up to 31 billion cubic meters of gas per year from eastern Turkey to a gas hub in Austria. The idea was developed to be a means of reducing the dependency of the EU on Russia for its gas supplies.