Bulgaria says EU will back pipeline with Greece

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov (R) with European Commission Vice President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic in Sofia, February 9, 2015. On March 20, Borisov said in Brussels Sefcovic had assured him IGB would be financed with EU funds.

Πηγή: NewEurope
By Kostis Geropoulos
March 24 2015

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has said that European Commission Vice President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic had assured him that the gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) would be financed with EU funds.

“I think we will be able to build the Bulgaria-Greece gas interconnector with European money. I have Sefcovic’s assurance, and that of all colleagues, that the interconnector will be financed by the European Commission,” Borisov said after a European Council meeting in Brussels, according to a Bulgaria government press release posted on its website on March 20.

The European Commission could not confirm what exactly has been said by Sefcovic, however, as regards the Central and Southeast Europe, European Commission energy spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen reminded that the High Level Group on Central and South Eastern Europe Gas Connectivity (CESEC) kicked off its work in February, and the regional sub-groups have started their work.

“The high level group’s objective is to establish regional priority infrastructure and advance its implementation. As regards Bulgaria, the Commission recognises its particular vulnerability as regards its energy security of supply. This was also what the recent stress tests have shown,” Itkonen told New Europe on March 23.

She noted that the European Commission remains committed to integrating the South Eastern European gas markets, including Bulgaria, by putting in place necessary infrastructure and implementing regional projects. However, Itkonen stressed that it is crucial that Bulgaria and other countries in the region swiftly complete projects already underway and speed up development of projects of common interest identified as being of strategic importance.

The €220-million IGB pipeline, which will be 182 kilometres long, will start in the northeastern Greek city of Komotini and end at Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. It will carry 3 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually in its initial stage and will have a maximum capacity of 5 billion cubic metres per year. It will eventually be connected to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe through Greece.

IGB, which is scheduled to be operational by 2018, is an essential part of a vertical gas corridor connecting Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, which the three countries have committed to develop. Parallel to that, Bulgaria and Serbia have stepped up work on a gas interconnector linking the two countries.

Bulgaria is working on a number of other gas projects to ensure its gas diversification, Borisov also said in Brussels.

Peter Poptchev, a long-time Bulgarian ambassador-at-large for energy security, told New Europe on March 23 that Borissov’s statement should be read to mean that additional funds to the ones received under the Recovery Programme seem to have been “promised”, probably with the argument that by far the larger part of IGB is in Bulgaria.

He reminded that Bulgarian Minister of Energy Temenuzhka Petkova pledged to accelerate the construction of IGB, for the time being by a year and finish it in 2018. “My own preference is that this is done by 2017, not that by then there will be new gas but this interconnection is a landmark one for the three countries and the region and it should be seen as a step in building the Energy Union in the region,” Poptchev said, referring to the plans spearheaded by Sefcovic to create a single market for power and gas, based on better connections between member states.

China commissions world's longest gas pipeline

Πηγή: TNIE
By IANS
Dec 30 2012

China's west to east gas pipeline, which is the world's longest line, turned fully operational as its last section opened Sunday, the country's largest oil and gas producer announced.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said the 8,704-km pipeline will carry natural gas from central Asia to as far as Shanghai in east China and Guangzhou and Hong Kong in south China, Xinhua reported.

The pipeline worth 142 billion-yuan (over $22 billion) traverses 15 provincial regions and will benefit about 500 million people, according to the CNPC.

The pipeline's annual natural gas transportation capacity is 30 billion cubic metres. It runs from Huoerguosi, located on the China-Kazakhstan border in northwest Xinjiang Uygur region, to Hong Kong.

War of pipelines

Πηγή: The International News
By Dr Ikramul Haq and Huzaima Bukhari
Dec 13 2012

US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson’s statement on December 10 against the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline (IP) was not a mere reiteration of the economic interests of the United States and its allies; it has serious political connotations, in an area that has always been the battlefield in the Great Game. 

The expression of concern by Olson came just two days after President Asif Ali Zardari skipped his scheduled visit to Tehran to finalise the project with his Iranian counterpart. The US has been opposing the pipeline since its inception and favouring the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (Tapi).

The IP, a $1.2 billion project, has been lingering since 1995 when a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Iran and Pakistan. 

The Iran-Pakistan Working Group was formed in 2003 to move the project forward. Islamabad told Tehran that in case India was unwilling to join in, the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline would be pursued as an independent project. 

But in 2005, a memorandum of understanding was signed to include India. In 2007, India and Pakistan provisionally agreed to pay Iran $4.93 per million British thermal units, but India subsequently withdrew from the deal, ostensibly over concerns about the price and security but in fact due to opposition from the US. 

Under the accord signed in June 2010, Iran was to provide about 21.5 million cubic metres of gas a day to Pakistan for 25 years. The deal is extendable by five years and volumes can rise to 30 million cubic metres a day. The project is now in doldrums.

The projected 1,680-kilometre Tapi gas pipeline is backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It has the potential to bring 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (bcfd) from Turkmenistan’s gas fields passing near the cities of Herat and Kandahar, crossing into Pakistan near Quetta and linking with existing pipelines at Multan.

After India’s withdrawal from the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, China showed interest in it. 

In October 2011 Dr Asim Hussain said, “Our dependence on Pak-Iran pipeline is very high and there is no other substitute at present to meet the growing demand of the energy.” 

This statement irritated the US, which has been pleading the case for Tapi since the 1990s. Tapi was initially designed to provide Turkmen gas to Pakistan through Afghanistan. 

In April 2008, India was also invited to join in. Pakistan’s cabinet gave approval to the Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement (GPFA) for Tapi in its meeting on October 27, 2010. On November 13, 2011, Pakistan and Turkmenistan initiated the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA), which is likely to make the multi-nation project operational by 2016.

From the very beginning, the US and its allies wanted Pakistan to abandon the project with Iran, which wants to diversify gas sales to Asian markets. 

Tehran’s projection of IP as a “peace pipeline” has the support of Russia and China. While regional powers desire to find a stable, reliable source of gas supplies, America and allies want to destabilise the entire region using militancy as a tool. 

The tussle over the Iran-Pakistan gas project and Tapi is not a mere economic battle but has far-reaching geopolitical dimensions.

It is a matter of record that the US and its Nato allies had decided to invade Afghanistan much before 9/11. 

The decision to this effect was taken in Berlin during the joint meeting of the council of ministers held in November 2000 in the wake of apprehensions regarding Tapi, in which powerful corporate entities, which actually rule the US and other capitalist countries, had financial interests. 

George W Bush appointed Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, former aide to the American oil company Unocal, as special envoy to Afghanistan, nine days after the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai took office in Kabul. This appointment underscored the real economic and financial interests at stake in the US military intervention in Central Asia.

Khalilzad was intimately involved in the long-running US efforts to obtain direct access to the oil and gas resources of the region, largely unexploited but believed to be the second-largest in the world after those of the Persian Gulf. 

During the Bush government the state department was exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy projects in the region, having more than six percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and almost 40 percent of its gas reserves. 

On December 15, 2001, in an article titled ‘As the war shifts alliances, oil deals follow,’ the New York Times reported that during a visit in early December to this region, Secretary of State Colin L Powell said he was particularly impressed with the money that American oil companies were investing there. 

He estimated that $200 billion could flow into this region within the following decade.

As an advisor for Unocal, Khalilzad drew up the risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. 

He participated in talks between Unocal and Taliban officials in 1997, which were aimed at implementing a 1995 agreement to build the pipeline across western Afghanistan. Unocal was the lead company in the formation of the CentGas consortium behind Tapi.

The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline and Tapi are symbols of the New Great Game – the main goal of which is gaining control of oil and gas reserves in this region. 

As Frank Viviano wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on September 26, 2001: ‘’The hidden stakes in the war against terrorism can be summed up in a single word: oil/gas. 

The map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world’s principal energy sources in the 21st century. 

It is inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America’s Chevron, Exxon, and Arco; France’s TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the region.’’

This is the ugly reality of the ongoing war over gas pipelines in our region – US and its allies want to grab oil and gas resources for their economic interests benefiting huge multinational corporations in which the western ruling elites have substantial interest. In an article in Global Research, ‘Balochistan: Crossroads of Proxy War,’ Eric Draitser wrote on July 1: “China’s insatiable thirst for oil and gas makes the development of pipelines from Central Asia, Iran, and elsewhere invaluable to them. 

The Iran-Pakistan pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (Tapi) pipeline, and other projects all serve to increase the importance of Balochistan in the eyes of the Chinese. 

Additionally, the Chinese-funded Pakistani Gwadar Port is the access point for Chinese commercial shipping to the Indian Ocean and on to Africa. With all of this as a backdrop, one can begin to see just why Balochistan is so significant to the Chinese and, conversely, why the United States and its western puppets seek to destabilise it.”

The writers are adjunct professors at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. Emails: huzaima@huzaimaikram. com, ikram@huzaimaikram.com

Shah Deniz Partners BP, SOCAR and TOTAL commit to funding for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP)

Πηγή: TAP
August 9 2012

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline announced today that TAP and its existing shareholders EGL, Statoil and E.ON Ruhrgas have reached an agreement with members of the Shah Deniz Consortium to secure funding for the TAP project. These funds will contribute towards continued work in several important areas during the period running up to the final routing decision, expected in 2013.

The agreement also includes an option for the Shah Deniz shareholders to take up to 50% equity in TAP.

EGL, Statoil and E.ON Ruhrgas welcome this endorsement of TAP and anticipate successful cooperation in delivering the pipeline project.

Kjetil Tungland, TAP’s Managing Director, said: “The signing of this agreement is a significant vote of confidence in the quality of TAP’s technical and commercial solutions from key industry players, and underpins the Cooperation Agreement that was signed between TAP and Shah Deniz in June.

“Our cooperation with Shah Deniz is now even closer and more far-reaching than before. This agreement will strengthen our continued working relationship in the run-up to the final routing decision. We remain confident of a positive outcome.”

TAP will transport natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz II development in Azerbaijan, shipping it via Greece and Albania, across the Adriatic Sea to Southern Italy, and further into Western Europe. Designed to expand transportation capacity from 10 to 20 bcm per year, depending on supply and demand, TAP will open up the so-called Southern Gas Corridor, enhancing Europe’s energy security by contributing to the diversification of the region’s gas supplies.

ENDS

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About the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP)

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is a natural gas pipeline project. The pipeline will transport gas from the Caspian region via Greece and Albania and across the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy and further into western Europe. The project is aimed at enhancing security of supply as well as diversification of gas supplies for the European markets. TAP will open a new so-called Southern Gas Corridor to Europe and establish a new market outlet for natural gas from the Caspian Sea.

The project is designed to expand transportation capacity from 10 to 20 bcm per year. TAP also envisages physical reverse flow of up to 80 per cent and the option to develop natural gas storage facilities in Albania to further ensure security of supply during any operational interruption of gas deliveries.

TAP’s shareholders are EGL of Switzerland (42.5%), Norway’s Statoil (42.5%) and E.ON Ruhrgas of Germany (15%).

Greek Environment Ministry Okays Bulgaria Gas Link

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev (left) with President Karolos Papoulias during the former's official visit in Greece on  5th of July 2012

Πηγή: Turkish Weekly
July 16 2012

Greece's Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change has approved a preliminary environmental report on the construction of the gas link that is to connect Komotini to Bulgaria's Stara Zagora.

The gas link will pose limited, short-term and reversible environmental consequences for the region, Greek authorities believe, according to Phantis.

The 180-kilometer (112-mile) link run from Komotini in Greece to Stara Zagora in Bulgaria will be open to ship gas from the Caspian, the Mediterranean, or from a liquefied natural gas terminal in Turkey.

The gas link will have a transportation capability of 3.0 billion cubic metres of gas annually, with an option of rising 5.0 billion. A metric station will be built in Komotini.

The project will be build by Interconnector Greece Bulgaria (ICGB) company, comprising of IGI Poseidon (a joint venture by DEPA and Italy's Edison) and Bulgarian Energy Holding.

Bulgaria moved to link its natural gas grid to that of its neighbors after the January 2009 gas war between Russia and Ukraine, which cut off the Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria for full three weeks leaving it without natural gas in the middle of the winter.

Armenian govt. approves Iran-Armenia pipeline construction regulations

Πηγή: Panarmenian
April 12 2012


On April 12, the Armenian government approved the technical regulations of the operation of Iran-Armenia oil pipeline.

In this context, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan attached importance to initial setting of technical regulations for the construction of the pipeline.

Iran-Armenia oil pipeline construction, scheduled to be completed in 2014, will allow Armenia to export oil products both from Iran and the Persian Gulf, a major market for petroleum products, according to Armenian Minister of Energy and Natural Resources.

Construction of Armenia-Iran pipeline will be funded on both sides, with Armenia allocating USD 100 million to the project.

Pipeline operation contract will be concluded for the period of 25 years. As Armen Movsisyan stated, Armenia’s internal need for oil products comprises 400 thousand tons a year.

Official: Chinese Bank Cold On Iran-Pak Gas Deal

Πηγή: Official Wire
By Asif Shahzad
March 14 2012

A state-owned Chinese bank that had agreed to finance the Pakistani section of a gas pipeline from Iran that is opposed by the United States is no longer interested in the project, a Pakistani finance ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

Finance Ministry spokesman Naveed Iqbal said he didn't know why the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was apparently backing out, but said "the geopolitical situation" had previously been cited by the petroleum ministry as the reason.

The U.S. has warned Pakistan and companies assisting the project could face sanctions if they go ahead.

Washington believes Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, and wants to isolate Tehran economically to try and get it to abandon any nuclear plans. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Iqbal said the Chinese bank and Pakistan's Habib Bank Limited had jointly agreed to help finance the Pakistani section of the pipeline, but now seemed to "have no more interest in the project." Neither company could immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

Pakistani leaders have vowed to press ahead with the pipeline despite U.S. opposition, saying it was vital for the supply of gas to the energy-starved country. But there have been widely expressed doubts over who will finance the project given U.S. opposition.

Asked about the Chinese bank's apparent withdrawal, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said, "There are always a multiplicity of funding sources which are available for any project."

"This is a fairly viable project and we hope and we will not see any problem in trying to find ways and means of ensuring its funding," she said.

Explosion damages oil pipeline in Syrian city of Homs

The pipeline has been targeted several times during the uprising in Syria

Πηγή: BBC
Feb 15 2012

An explosion has hit a major oil pipeline in the central Syrian city of Homs, witnesses and activists say.

A large plume of smoke was seen rising from the pipeline, which runs near farmland on the edge of the Baba Amr district - the target of bombardment by government forces for more than a week.

State media blamed "armed terrorists", but one activist group said government fighter jets had blown up the pipeline.

Activists also said security forces had begun shelling the nearby city of Hama.

Several people had been injured by rocket and mortar fire in the districts of Arbain, Amiriya, Faraiya, Elilat, Bashura and Bab Qibli, and all telecommunications had been cut, they added.Damascus raids

The pipeline damaged on Wednesday morning runs from the Rumeila fields in the eastern Syriac Desert to the Homs refinery, one of two in the country, which supplies the capital Damascus and the country's south.

A dense plume of black smoke was seen rising above the city several hours after the blast, residents told the Reuters news agency.

It is not yet clear what caused the explosion, but the state news agency, Sana, reported that an "armed terrorist group" was behind it.

One activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committees, said warplanes had flown over Baba Amr - a centre of anti-government protests - and blown up the pipeline. Others said the army had shelled it by mistake.

The pipeline has been targeted several times during the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, which began in March.

Activists say more than 400 people have died in Homs since security forces launched an offensive on opposition-held areas on 5 February.

Meanwhile, reports from Damascus say troops from the elite Republican Guard and army's Fourth Armoured Division - both under the command of President Assad's brother, Maher - have stormed the suburb of Barzeh, setting up roadblocks, searching houses and making arrests.

Residents told the Reuters news agency that the soldiers were looking for opposition activists and members of the Free Syrian Army, a group of army defectors who are seeking to overthrow the president by force.