Oil and Gas Pipeline Watch

Finland to back Nord Stream

Finland will lend its support to the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea to Germany despite environmental concerns, the Kremlin said.

The dual pipelines along a 758-mile route slated for a 2012 operation date would bring roughly 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to European customers each year through the Gulf of Finland and Baltic Sea to Germany.

Several littoral states have expressed environmental concerns over the construction of Nord Stream, which is complicated by munitions strewn along the Baltic Sea floor.

Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb had said in February that the $12 billion Nord Stream pipeline was vital for diversifying regional gas supplies, however, and anonymous Kremlin sources told RIA Novosti a Finnish announcement was imminent.

"I believe that they (Finland) will make a decision in June," the source said.

Meanwhile, Latvian President Valdis Zatlers expressed some reservations about Nord Stream, saying it was a joint development between Russian gas giant Gazprom and Germany that had little economic opportunity for his country.

Zatlers told Russian-language radio, however, that if Russia were to consider a gas pipeline that crossed his territory, Latvia would make gas storage facilities for its use.

Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev embarked on a two-day visit to Finland to discuss economic ties.

Turkey pledges commitment to Nabucco

Turkey will honor its commitments to the Nabucco gas pipeline as it has done with several other resource arteries, the Turkish natural resource minister said.

Hilmi Guler told an audience at a conference on the Turkish energy sector held in Istanbul that Nabucco, just as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, would be completed quickly, Today's Zaman reports.

Guler has said his country was waiting for a European response on the gas pipeline but expected to sign off on the project by June.

Europe heralds the planned $10.7 billion Nabucco pipeline as contributing to its efforts to reduce its dependency on Russian natural gas.

Nabucco would travel 2,051 miles from suppliers in the Middle East and the Caspian region, notably Azerbaijan, along a route through Turkey.

Meanwhile, Guler said he anticipated a meeting with energy officials in Greece, Italy and Azerbaijan to discuss energy transports from the region.

Nabucco has an estimated 2011 launch date but faces financial and supply obstacles, as there are several other rival projects in the works for the region.

'Peace Pipeline' meeting postponed

Tehran and Islamabad have postponed an April meeting to discuss the long-awaited Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline from the South Pars gas field, officials said.

Iranian media, notably referring to the pipeline as the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, said top officials from both sides had met during the weekend to discuss the terms of the project.

Adil Javed, a Pakistani energy spokesman, said Thursday that top government officials were scheduled to visit Tehran soon to discuss the project, adding that Islamabad was very interested in the deal.

Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, the Iranian special envoy to the project, said, however, that Islamabad had postponed an official meeting on the pipeline, the Fars News Agency reports.

The Fars report said the meeting, scheduled for the end of April, was postponed because of a death in the family of Assem Hossein, a top energy adviser in Pakistan.

Plans for the $7.4 billion pipeline, sometimes called the Peace Pipeline, face a series of delays on security concerns, bickering between Islamabad and New Delhi, as well as pricing terms.

Western nations, for their part, oppose any deal that provides economic benefits to sanction-bound Iran.

Azeri crude transits set for increase

The volume of crude oil through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline to Russia is expected to increase in the near future, the president of Azerbaijan said.

Last week Azeri President Ilham Aliyev told his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, he welcomed the strong energy ties between both nations, the Azerbaijan Business Center reports.

"Cooperation between our countries is very positive," he said, adding that the crude oil volumes through the route to Russia were set to increase.

Baku-Novorossiysk travels 830 miles from ports on the Caspian Sea to Russia, terminating at the Black Sea. Exports through the route in the first quarter of 2009 topped 4.4 million barrels of crude, the ABC report said.

Medvedev, for his part, praised a potential gas deal with Azerbaijan as working toward regional energy security.

"This could open up a new page in energy cooperation," RIA Novosti quotes the Russian president as saying. "This would make it possible to speak about energy diversification and offer a solution to the problem of energy security, which is a priority today."

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(dgraeber@upi.com)