Page 9 - FSUOGM Week 33 2019

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM
Chinese, European firms
get behind Trans-Caspian,
claims Ashgabat
The Turkmen sea resort of Avaza hosted the rst Caspian economic forum this month.
CASPIAN
A group of Chinese and European compa- nies allegedly plans to realise the long-delayed Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, pro-Turkmen media have claimed.
Representatives from Germany’s Edison Technologies and MMEC Mannesmann, France’s Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions and China’s Sinopec held talks on August 13 with Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov at the rst Caspian economic forum in the Turk- men tourist zone of Avaza, the Orient.tm news agency reported. During their meeting, the com- panies expressed their readiness to construct the subsea pipe.
The Trans-Caspian project has been dis- cussed for decades but has never moved beyond blueprints because of opposition from Iran and Russia. e pipeline would allow Turkmenistan to access the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), designed to pump gas from Azerbaijan across Georgia and Turkey and into Southeast Europe. Russia, already Europe’s largest gas supplier, and Iran, which has its own eyes on the market, want to avoid giving a competitor an opening.
“Having joined a consortium, we can now implement such a project as a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan along the bottom of the Caspian Sea,” Edison Technologies’ gen- eral director Kasapoglu Edison told Orient.tm. “ e European market is interested in it, and we consider it a great step to return to the promising Caspian region.”
According to Orient.tm, the project as dis- cussed at the meeting would involve the con- struction of a 300-km pipeline, along with gas wells, gas treatment and compressor stations. Turkmen o cials have previously discussed building a 30bn cubic metre per year pipeline to Azerbaijan – matching the capacity of the completed East-West pipeline from Turkmen- istan’s eastern gas heartland to the Caspian shore.
A landmark convention on the Caspian Sea’s status signed a year ago would allow Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to build the pipeline without the consent of other Caspian nations. Iran and Russia are yet to ratify the treaty, however.
The convention also states that cross-bor- der infrastructure needs to comply with agreed environmental standards, giving Iran and Rus- sia some room potentially to block the pipe- line’s construction. Comments at the forum by Behrouz Namdari, a representative at Iran’s national oil company (NOC), suggest Tehran intends to use this argument.
“ e construction of a gas pipeline from the east to the west of the Caspian Sea could cause severe damage to the region’s ecology... Iran is opposed to its construction,” he said in a speech.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, also present at the forum, said he was “absolutely convinced that all major projects in the Caspian Sea should undergo a thorough and impartial environmental evaluation involving specialists from all Caspian countries.” ™
Week 33 21•August•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m
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