Nabucco pipeline wins key regulatory clearance

The Nabucco pipeline which is to bring gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to the EU through Turkey and the Balkans has been given a boost by receiving a crucial piece of regulatory clearance.

Nabucco project co-ordinator Jozias van Aartsen, a former Dutch foreign minister, said in Brussels last week (22 November) that the pipeline had been granted an Article 22 exemption by the Austrian regulator. This gives a limited exemption from rules requiring that third parties have access to the pipeline and is a crucial incentive for companies to invest in long-term infrastructure projects with assurance of a certain return for a fixed period.

Speaking after a meeting with Andris Piebalgs, the European energy commissioner, van Aartsen said that the pipeline had the firm backing of the four key member states. "All four countries on the European side - Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania - are glued to the project again…and see it as a priority," he said. The pipeline has been beset with doubts that it will be built, especially as it was unclear where the gas supplies meant to flow through the pipeline would come from.

The €4.6 billion, 3,300-kilometre pipeline is scheduled for completion in 2012.

Nabucco is one of four priority interconnect-ion projects identified by the EU as part of its drive to diversify its sources of supply.

The others are: an electricity connection between France and Spain (co-ordinator: Mario Monti, Italian, former European commissioner); off-shore wind connector between Denmark, Germany and Poland (Georg Adamowitsch, former German state secretary) and connecting the Baltic grid to the continental network in Germany, Poland and Lithuania (Władyslaw Mielczarski, Polish university professor).

The Nabucco pipeline which is to bring gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to the EU through Turkey and the Balkans has been given a boost by receiving a crucial piece of regulatory clearance.