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  • lack of reserves
  • current plans are for 30bcm/y
  • don't ask me. I suspect it is about losing control of the overall chain to a Western major (like on Sakhalin energy, Shell is still the operator of the project): majors are needed because the core requirement is not having enough money, it's having contractual credibility.
  • a big, overwhelming, if. But the answer would be yes.


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Aug 31st, 2008 at 05:34:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm curious about why there is such mainstream confidence, nay certitude, that Azeri gas would be able to fill Nabucco.

See this recent Reuters piece, also talking about Georgian transit issues and Baku's increased siding with Moscow/Gazprom: http://tinyurl.com/5axtg2

by MaBozza (greig.aitken AT gmail.com) on Mon Sep 1st, 2008 at 01:09:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
this piece from EurActiv undercuts the Reuters piece, even if the headline masks that the project was kinda pie in the sky before the Georgia crisis


Nabucco: 'Pie in the sky' after Georgia crisis?


Steve Mufson of the Washington Post writes that one European oil company executive told him that the Nabucco project was simply "not a doable project because there is not enough gas to justify the investment," at least without Iranian gas coming into it. "The only thing that can make it viable is by using Iranian gas," the oil executive further elaborated, adding that otherwise it is a "pie in the sky." American policymakers, he said, "want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to keep Europe from using Russian gas and they want to keep Iran in a corner too".
by MaBozza (greig.aitken AT gmail.com) on Mon Sep 1st, 2008 at 04:01:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I know that the WaPo has to have an American angle, but WTF do "American policymakers" think they ought to have a stake in - much less a say in - European energy deals with those of our neighbours with whom we decide to maintain friendly relations for our mutual benefit?

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Sep 1st, 2008 at 04:24:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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