Iranian gas and Nabucco

The other day Nabucco Gas Pipeline International, the Nabucco gas pipeline project operator, reported about its plans to lay the pipeline to the Iraqi and Georgian borders and not to stretch the pipeline to Iran. However, simultaneously quite an interesting comment was made regarding possible intake of about 10bn cu m of gas per year into Nabucco from some Turkish sources. Turkey produces less than 1bn cu m and it is a large importer, which means that "Turkish sources" can only be imports, e.g. Iranian supplies. Currently Iran delivers about 6bn to 7bn cu m of gas per year to Turkey but considering the announced launch of construction of a new large gas pipeline this volume may grow significantly.

Implementation of this plan will face a number of political obstacles but this variant should not be fully ruled out. It was Iran that was initially viewed as the main gas supplier for Nabucco. With corresponding investments and normalization of political relations with the West it is Iran (not Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan or Iraq) with its huge reserves of natural gas that could seriously reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas and powerfully hit Gazprom's positions. Iranian piped gas exports to the EU (it is not important that in the course of its transportation this gas will formally turn into Turkish) theoretically may become more substantial than Qatar's current LNG supplies that many mass media sources and some officials in Brussels often threaten Moscow with. It should be mentioned that Ankara and Tehran are actively pursuing the course aimed at closer political relations, which should quite logically result in intensified economic cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

In this regard Russian authorities may have to more carefully revise their own policies in the region that so far include steps towards increasing Russia's dependence on transit through Turkey (within the framework of South Stream) as well as policies on de facto supporting Iran, its main potential rival on the European gas market, in the UN Security Council. A tough variant of UN sanctions against Iran stipulated a ban on supplies of oil products to this country (Iran has noticeable difficulties with them as the processing sector is underdeveloped) as well as a ban for UN members to buy oil and gas from this country. In this context Moscow could also pay more attention to recent statements made by Tehran about "Russian president Dmitry Medvedev turning into the mouthpiece of Iran's enemies" and to existing disagreements between Russia and Iran over division of the Caspian Sea.

By Stanislav Mitrakhovich, NESF leading expert