Unlikely Nabucco will Move Iraqi Kurdish Gas Before 2020
Natural gas from the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq is unlikely to be exported to Europe via the planned Nabucco pipeline before 2020, according to London-based consultant Jennifer Coolidge Executive Director of CMX Caspian and Gulf Consultants.
European gas companies have been hoping to import gas from Iraq to allow them to diversify their sources of supply but political and logistic difficulties are likely to prevent this happening quickly, Coolidge told a roundtable at the European Autumn Gas Conference.
Iraq needed to form a government, agree to a gas strategy and then synchronize policy with Kurdish authorities in Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
"It might not be . . . until sometime after 2020 when large exports could be coming out," Coolidge said.
Iraqi leaders are in talks now to break an eight-month deadlock over the formation of a new government to give incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a second term,tbut negotiations have been very slow.
European gas companies have been courting the Iraqi Kurdistan government but the central government in Baghdad maintains domestic power supply has to be provided in the war-damaged country before gas can be sent abroad.
Coolidge said once the government had been formed, the next step would be the passing of hydrocarbon legislation. Kurdistan and Baghdad then needed to agree a unified approach to allow small amounts of gas to be shipped out of northern Iraq.
"Iraq has the opportunity to become a serious gas player ... it depends ... how it chooses to create a gas strategy," she said.
Alternative suppliers for Nabucco are Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan but the latter is heavily committed to China and Russia, she said.
German utility RWE, part of the Nabucco consortium, has said a deal with Kurdistan could help bring export revenues that could be spent on Iraq's energy infrastructure.
Nabucco consortium members, which also include Austria's OMV and Hungary's MOL, have delayed firm decisions on the pipeline until next year, awaiting stronger supply commitments for the 31 billion cubic metre project.
Source: Ekurd.net