European pipelines bank on non-existent Azeri gas

摘要

A new project has joined the spiders web of proposednpipelines designed to bring natural gas from the Caspiannto the hungry European market, highlighting further thatnthe claims on actually available gas fail to stack up. Thenlatest scheme, dubbed White Stream, would bypass notnjust Russia, but also Turkey. Ankara has ruffled feathersnin Europe by demanding that companies wishing tontransit gas across its territory sell it up to a sixth of thengas at the same price the seller paid at the Turkishnborder on entry. One senior EU source said that “ifnTurkey is not prepared to play a constructive role, we willnswitch to competing routes. White Stream is exactly thenright size for the amount of gas available.”