Turkey close to Azeri gas deal

Article reported that Turkey in May 2012 was close to an agreement to bring gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, a deal widely seen as marking the end of the road for a longstanding wider European plan to combine Azerbaijani with Central Asian gas and reduce the continent’s dependence on Russian imports.

By the end of June 2012 Turkey would conclude an agreement with Azerbaijan to set up a new pipeline to transport gas from the Caspian state’s giant Shah Deniz field.

European Union officials had hoped that a bigger pipeline, named Nabucco, would take the gas more than 3,000km into the heart of Europe and, at a later stage, also transport gas from Turkmenistan, so providing substantial alternative supplies to Russian gas.

But there is now little medium-term prospect that Russian dominance of European energy markets would be offset by a pipeline extending from Central Asia to western Europe via Azerbaijan.

ESO: Background information: Europe's southern gas corridor: The great pipeline race http://www.europeansources.info/record/europes-southern-gas-corridor-the-great-pipeline-race/

ESO: Background information: Pilot flame flickers on gas pipeline project http://www.europeansources.info/record/pilot-flame-flickers-on-gas-pipeline-project/

Wikipedia: Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Anatolian_gas_pipeline

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