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Weekly Lists
February 23, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 27
bne:
Infrastructure
First phase of Southern Gas Corridor scheduled for July launch
Russian government tightens the use of National Welfare
fund for financing infrastructure projects
The first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe will open in July, Azeri state energy company SOCAR said on February 19.
The three pipelines that make up the SGC—the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the South Caucasus Pipeline through Georgia and the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) through Turkey—are to provide the first direct route for carrying gas from Azerbaijan’s giant Shah Deniz field to markets in Europe.
“We will start first commercial supplies of gas to Turkey [through TANAP] in early July this year,” Vitaly Baylarbayov, SOCAR deputy vice president, said in an interview with Reuters.
The Russian government has tightened the use of the National Wel- fare Fund (NWF) for financing infrastructure projects. The govern- ment will only allow reserve funds held in the NWF to be used when the liquid part of the fund is bigger than 7% of GDP, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ordered on February 16.
The new rules are designed to extend the life of the fund after its sister fund, the Reserve fund was completely spent down at the start of 2017 on supporting the budget.
Now resources from the NWF can be used only in projects started before January 1, 2018 and to purchase shares in the Russian Direct Fund investment (RDIF), and even in this case the govern- ment has to make a specific decision on the purchase up to a cap of RUB290bn ($5.1bn).
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is considering supporting
the key motorway Romania plans to build through the Carpathian mountains between Comarnic and Brasov, EIB vice-president An- drew McDowell told a press conference alongside Romania’s Fi- nance Minister Eugen Teodorovici on February 19 in Bucharest. But it is a challenging project, the EIB official added.
The 52km motorway is part of the Bucharest-Brasov route through the Carpathian mountains but high construction costs have forced the government to reconsider the project.
EIB considers financing Romania’s Comarnic- Brasov motorway