Iraq to pump 15 bln cubic meters of gas through Nabucco pipeline – Stanishev

SOFIA

Bulgaria’s outgoing Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev announced on Friday that Iraq pledged to pump 15 billion cubic meters of gas through Nabucco pipeline starting from 2014-2015.

An agreement on the Iraqi contribution to the major project was reached during the meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Iraqi counterpart Nouri Al-Maliki in Ankara, capital of Turkey, early this week, Stanishev told.

Al-Maliki, together with Stanishev and Erdogan as well as the prime ministers of Romania, Hungary and Austria, signed the intergovernmental agreement on the Nabucco gas pipeline project on Monday in the presence of President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and EU the Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

“Iraq promised to take part actively in the efforts being made by the European Union to finalize this project which is crucial to energy security of Europe,” Stanishev affirmed.

“The promise falls in the framework of the noticeable improvement of the relations between Iraq on one hand and the EU and Iraq’s neighbors on the other,” he said, noting that a 20-kilometer subsidiary pipeline will be built between Iraq and Turkey to convey the Iraqi gas to Nabucco.

“Bulgaria will receive up to one billion cubic meters of Iraqi gas a year. Egypt will also supply Bulgaria with two billion cubic meters of gas annually as of 2010 according to a deal signed by the two countries in April, 2009,” the prime minister pointed out.

“These high-profile deals are part of the efforts being made by the European countries to become less dependent on the Russian gas supplies,” he added.
The 3,300 kilometer-long Nabucco Pipeline will run from Erzurum in Turkey via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to Baumgarten, a major natural gas hub in Austria. Near Erzurum, it will be connected with the Tabriz-Erzurum pipeline and with the South Caucasus Pipeline and the planned Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline.