Yesterday, Europe was dealt a heavy blow in its crusade for proclaiming its energy independence from Russia. The positive evolution of the Nabucco project, the interest in exploiting the shale gas and the investigation started by the EU against the anticompetitive of Gazprom have pressured the price of Russian natural gas, which has seen a downward trend. The Russians did not sit idle and they have dealt a fatal blow to the European Union, by annihilating the Nabucco pipeline, a project in which Romania is involved together with Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria, and which was supposed to supply Europe with cheap natural gas from Azerbaijan. Russia has shown Europe that it has no chance of escaping its grasp, when it comes to energy.
Austrian group OMV has announced yesterday, that the Nabucco pipeline, designed to supply Europe with natural gas from the Caspian Sea area, has not been selected as a transport route by the Shah Deniz consortium, The consortium, which will exploit one of the biggest gas deposits in Azerbaijan, has chosen the TAP project instead, a pipeline which will supply the Azeri natural gas to via Greece, Albania and Italy.
The announcement by OMV occurred just a few hours after Austrian publication Die Presse wrote, based on sources, that the shareholders of the Shah Deniz consortium of Azerbaijan have selected a different transport route to Europe, via Greece, and Albania to Italy. The publication claims that the project has failed due to the opposition of the BP group, one of the important shareholders of Shah Deniz.
Nabucco has been buried by Russia, sources close to the situation told us. SOCAR, a company owned by the Azeri state and a significant shareholder in Shah Deniz, has succeeded in taking over control of DESFA, the operator of the Greek gas transport, after the Gazprom group pulled out of the privatization
