EU eyes progress on gas pipelines from Iraq, Egypt
The European Union said on Monday it was progressing with efforts to secure gas supplies from Egypt and Iraq as part of the bloc's efforts to reduce its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said 7 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas had been secured, and progress had been made on developing gas pipelines during a meeting with senior officials from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. "Seven billion cubic metres (bcm) from new sources to the European market is not bad from this part of the world," Piebalgs told reporters.
He said 5 bcm of gas was expected to come from Iraq's Akkas field in two or three years -- as announced in April -- while a further 2 bcm is expected to be piped from Egypt from 2010. The EU hopes to import Iraqi gas via the planned Nabucco pipeline across Turkey to central Europe as it diversifies gas supplies away from Russia which provides a quarter of its needs.
Officials attending Monday's meeting agreed to forge ahead with the Arab Gas Pipeline which runs from Egypt to Syria and with connections to Iraq, Turkey and the EU by 2009. "We're also looking in other directions," added Piebalgs. "Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are not less important for also directly delivering gas to the European Union." The European Commission said last month it had secured a guarantee of 10 billion cubic metres a year of natural gas from Turkmenistan from 2009 as part of the drive to ensure sufficient supplies to make Nabucco commercially viable.
The pipeline is seen as a rival to the Kremlin-backed South Stream project due eventually to take some 30 billion cubic metres of Russian gas a year to southern Europe. "Too many people still think we only look north and east when we think of our energy security, but we also of course look south too," said European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner. "On a bilateral level, I've already signed a joint declaration on energy cooperation with Jordan and we're close to signing an MoU with Egypt on energy and we are also working on another with Iraq," she added.
Ferrero-Waldner is set to launch on Tuesday the EU's Neighbourhood Investment Facility, which will provide over 700 million euros of funding for energy and transport infrastructure between the EU and neighbouring states between 2007 and 2013. The EU expects the facility to encourage a further 5-6 billion euros of lending for infrastructure projects.
