ياشاسين آذربايجان - Long live Azerbaijan

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During the first day of the Nabucco gas pipeline summit in Budapest, Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev announced that his country had agreed with Azerbaijan to hold talks on a deal that would see Bulgaria receive a billion cubic metres of gas a year. The summit, which opened

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Gas pipeline project asks European Investment Bank for financing.

During the first day of the Nabucco gas pipeline summit in Budapest, Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev announced that his country had agreed with Azerbaijan to hold talks on a deal that would see Bulgaria receive a billion cubic metres of gas a year.

The summit, which opened on January 26 2009, is being held as a response to the recent crisis that saw many European countries, deprived of natural gas supplies because of a dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

The summit is being attended by heads of state and government and economy and energy ministers from Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Iraq, Georgia, Austria, Turkey, Egypt and senior officials from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and the United States.

The consortium involved in the Nabucco gas pipeline project, which will transport gas from the Caspian region and Central Asia to Central Europe, diversifying sources and routes of gas supplies and increasing Europe’s energy independence, has approached the European Investment Bank for financing.

The gas pipeline project is a venture by Hungary’s MOL, Austria’s OMV, Romania’s Transgaz, Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz, Turkey’s Botas and Germany’s RWE, which joined the established company Nabucco Gas Pipeline International that manages the project last year. The estimated cost of the project to build 3300km of pipeline is 4.5 billion euro.

After meeting Azerbaijan president Ilhaim Aliyev, Stanishev said that “concrete talks” between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan about deliveries of a billion cubic meters of gas a year would start within a week.
Aliyev emphasised that the prospective implementation of the Nabucco project would not mean bypassing the Russian Federation, but choosing the shortest way for gas from the Caspian region to reach Europe.

Bulgaria’s Focus agency quoted an interview Aliyev gave to Russian agency Itar Tass in which Aliyev was quoted as saying that the Nabucco project was a trade, not a political, issue for Azerbaijan.

“Azerbaijan backs the project but the question what part the state would play in it still remains – as a transit state or as a supplier of gas,” Itar Tass quoted Aliyev as saying.

Azerbaijani Piresndent said that there was a real chance for Nabucco to be built in the next three to four years, but this would need strong political will and co-ordination.ans

, Voice of a Nation

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