Proceedings Publication Date
Presenter
Author
Dr. Jürgen Grönner
Part of the proceedings of
Abstract
European gas demand is expected to increase considerably in the upcoming two decades, while the European gas production is declining. Huge reserves around Europe are available, but the challenge is to transport the gas to the consumers. The Nabucco pipeline will be the link for gas from the caspian region and the Middle East to Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria and onwards to Europe. Shareholders in the Nabucco consortium are Germany’s RWE, Austria’s OMV, BOTAS (Turkey), Transgaz (Romania), Bulgarian Energy Holding (Bulgaria) and MOL (Hungary). The main strategic goals are to open a new gas supply corridor for Europe, raise the transit role of the participating countries along the route, contribute to the security of supply for all partner countries and strengthen the role of the gas pipeline grids. On 13th of July 2009, the transit countries of Nabucco signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) securing the legal framework to build and operate Nabucco and a common tariff methodology. The total length of the pipeline will be 3,300 km, currently costs are estimated with approx. € 8 bn. The pipeline is designed to transport a capacity of 31 bcm/a.

The presentation will focus on the technical perspective of the pipeline project.