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Main page > Comments > Fuel & Energy > Germany offered to join South Stream
Germany offered to join South Stream
The other day the German energy concern RWE officially confirmed rumors that it had received a proposal from Gazprom to join the South Stream project. According to representatives of the German company, RWE will consider this idea "but participation in the Nabucco project remains priority".
There can be two key options to interpret the event. Firstly, RWE may be simply trying to exert psychological pressure on Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan planned to be the main gas suppliers for Nabucco, demonstrating that they should not postpone for too long the official joining the European gas pipeline project and signing accords on guaranteed supplies. Otherwise, "the opportunity may be missed", and Baku and Ashkhabad will not be able to profit from Nabucco. It should be mentioned that it is RWE that lately has been busy negotiating with Turkmen authorities making loud (but not very full of substance) memorandums on gas cooperation.
The second possible explanation assumes that RWE has realized doubtful prospects of Nabucco (first of all regarding its resource base) and the holding is really investigating a possibility to join South Stream. Such developments could be a huge success of Gazprom, because in this case the project would become fully European with participation of Italy's Eni, France's EdF (as planned) and Germany's RWE. In this case the project can be hindered practically neither by skepticism of Brussels (European Commission) nor by Washington's policy of minimizing the EU's energy dependence on Russia. Besides, without RWE, a large gas trader having many clients, Nabucco would lose substantial part of its attractiveness for investors. Yet, this scenario looks too optimistic now - RWE has given no guarantee to Gazprom so far.
By Stanislav Mitrakhovich, NESF leading expert
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