South Stream and Nabucco – two Pipelines for one market: Not a good idea. How can that be profitable? Both fight for their consumers, for their quantities, and deliveries. Both can deliver gas, but the great difference is where the gas is from. Nabucco will bring natural gas from Azerbaijan and from the Caspian Sea, South Stream will bring more Russian gas. That is the big difference, it is strategic. One does not come from Russian and does not even touch Russian soil, the other one will transport Russian gas. It will rise Germany’s dependency on Russian gas to more than 50 Percent. If Europe want to diversify their gas resources, if it wants to keep at least a tiny bit of independence, it will have to build Nabucco, or TAP.
All of them would go through Turkey. It will play a key role for Europe’s energy security. That will be a strong argument for Turkey as a full member of the EU.
Update April 2014:
TAP made the race – routing was published in June 2013, finances cleared in December 2013. But further pipeline plans cause further conflicts. Blue Stream will increase its capacity by 20 percent, delivering to Turkey. The role of Crimea in energy geopolitics does not seem quite clear today.
