BRUSSELS, June 14 (UPI) -- Rather than squabble over rival gas pipelines for Europe, it might be better for Russia to make sure Ukraine is a reliable transit nation, an analyst said.
Russian officials last month traveled to Brussels to pitch their South Stream natural gas pipeline that would run through Turkish waters to southern Europe. European leaders, however, balked at the estimated $22.3 billion proposal.
Christian Egenhofer, an energy expert at the Center for European Policy Studies, told The New York Times that South Stream was "an implausibly huge and risky investment" that Moscow, nevertheless, could be using as a bargaining chip to rival Europe's planned Nabucco pipeline.
South Stream Chief Executive Officer Marcel Kramer told the Times his project wasn't meant to trump European efforts to get non-Russian gas through the Nabucco.
"To do such a major exercise as a sort of defensive move would be highly irrational," he said.
A dispute between Moscow and Kiev over gas contracts prompted Russian gas company Gazprom most recently in 2009 to shut off the gas. That left Europeans in the cold as 80 percent of the Russian gas bound for Europe runs through Soviet-era pipelines in Ukraine.
Massimo Di Odoardo, a natural gas analyst at consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, told the Times that neither pipeline made economic sense, however.
"It would be much cheaper for Russia and Europe to accept their interdependence and get to work making Ukraine an even more reliable gas corridor," he said.
