In contrast, the new trans-Black Sea shipping route provides potential for a viable substitute to Nabucco.
The gas pipeline from Baku to the Kulevi Black Sea port can be covered by the current understandings between Azerbaijan and Russia because Azerbaijan owns the terminal facilities. Significantly, these understandings already withstood the August 2008 war. On the other side of the Black Sea, natural gas can be shipped from Constanta via existing pipelines into the original system envisioned for Nabucco, as well as be shipped by barges up the Danube and into Europe's canal-and-river system. A barge-based transportation system can go into operation far faster than pipeline construction, thus enhancing Europe's energy security and diversifying suppliers more rapidly than originally anticipated.
Moreover, Azerbaijan is ready to commit the gas originally earmarked for Nabucco, and Turkmenistan is willing to reconsider support for and future export via a TCP.
The expansion of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania natural gas transportation route meets the primary precondition which prompted the original US support for, and sponsorship of, Nabucoo: namely, natural gas transportation system free of Russian control. At the same time, this route does not suffer from any of the debilitating shortcoming of the proposed Nabucco pipeline. Therefore, the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania route should be considered the viable, faster and cheaper alternative to Nabucco.
Analysis By Yossef Bodansky
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