ATHENS - The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and the development of Europe’s Southern Gas Corridor will proceed regardless of Italy’s new government, Gilberto Dialuce, director general for security of supply and energy infrastructure from Italy‘s Economic Development Ministry, told New Europe in Athens on 25 February. “It’s not a political question. It’s a matter of fact because we started to study the possibility to open the Southern Corridor since 2005 when we decided with the Greek government to possibility to link the Greek and the Italian network,” Dialuce said. Initially, both governments had thrown their support behind the Interconnector-Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI), the Italian official explained, adding that after the project was excluded from the competition to transfer gas from the Phase 2 of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field, Athens and Rome have been supporting TAP in the race against Nabucco West.
“We supported this project and the opening of the Southern Corridor, which is a general policy to increase security of supply not only for Italy but also for Europe. So notwithstanding the next change in the Italian government, it’s a matter of fact,” Dialuce said.
The final decision between TAP and Nabucco West will be made by the Shah Deniz consortium at the end of June. He said the European Commission is remaining neutral in terms of vocal support for TAP or Nabucco West and there are no conspiracy theories. “We had many meetings with European Commissioner [Gunther] Oettinger and the Commission offices now that the Commission is neutral for the two projects. It is common interest of the whole Europe that the Southern Corridor opens as soon as possible. Notwithstanding the total volumes that we can expect from Azerbaijan will not exceed 10 bcm (billion cubic metres) so it will not change the future of European gas demand,” Dialuce said.
He noted that it is a good possibility to increase the opening of the Southern Corridor to exceed 10 billion cubic metres. But in order to boost these volumes more gas supplies from Azerbaijan and also from Turkmenistan is needed. “But to have gas from Turkmenistan we need to build the Trans-Caspian pipeline and that is not so easy,” he said, referring to the disputed status of the Caspian Sea.
Regarding Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, Dialuce said that, according to the latest information, South Stream is scheduled to be connected to the Italian network just south of the entry point on the boundary between Austria and Italy. “But since now we have not received any application from the company to build the project or to have the environmental impact assessment or to have an intergovernmental agreement so it is a project also in the feasibility stage,” he said.
Regarding Europe’s reliance on Russian gas, Dialuce pointed out that it is very difficult to imagine a European Union totally independent from Russia. The domestic production in Europe will decline. Also taking into account the economic growth that hopefully could start again in a few years but also considering the European policies for renewables and efficiency there will be the need to increase the import of gas so Russian gas will remain important for Europe, he said. “But at the same time we need to diversify the source of supply.”
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