Energy Security: Europes Gas Pipeline

Question 1

context

Answer 1

• The EU and Russia are involved in a battle over a pipelines aimed at diversifies Europe’s energy imports.
• The Nabucco pipeline will transport gas over 3,000km from the Caspian region to Austria via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.
• Construction is expected to start in in 2010 and be completed by 2013 at a cost of 8 billion euros
• The Nabucco pipeline will be supplied with gas form Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Egypt and Syria.
• It will deliver a huge amount of gas making the EU much less dependent on Russian supplies.
• Russia’s reliably as a supplier has been in doubt since it temporarily shut off the gas supply to Ukraine in January 2006
• However, the Nabucco project has already run into some problems Iran and Syria remain politically unstable and the central Asian countries have promised huge amounts of gas to China and Russia.