Turkey said Saturday that it had dropped its demand to buy 15 percent of the gas from the Nabucco pipeline, a day after Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan signaled they had gas to contribute.
The string of announcements set a favorable stage for Monday, when a raft of transit agreements, which are expected to define where the pipeline will begin, will be signed in Turkey by the architects of the EU and U.S.-backed Nabucco.
The pipeline — connecting Turkey and a major gas hub in Austria — is to be built so that gas can flow in a west-east direction, as well as east-west as planned, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Saturday. The country agreed to abandon its 15 percent demand, which had been a major obstacle to finalizing the deal.
In another boost for the pipeline, seen as a rival to Russia’s South Stream project, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov said Friday that his country was ready to provide gas for the pipeline.
Russia, the main buyer of Turkmen gas, halted its imports in April after a pipeline exploded, and analysts have said Turkmenistan is losing up to $1 billion every month in lost revenue.
Azerbaijan on Friday also signaled a possible contribution, raising hopes of securing suppliers to make the pipeline viable.
Yildiz said Turkey also regarded Iran and Russia as future suppliers, but Tehran was not invited because of the ongoing standoff over the country’s nuclear program.
Richard Morningstar, the U.S. special energy envoy, said Sunday that Russia was free to supply gas to Nabucco and that participants in the project must accept it as a partner.
(Reuters, AP)
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