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Romania aligns with European energy policies
Romania aligns with the European energy policies, supports the diversification of natural gas sources and transmission routes, backs the Nabucco project as a priority and emphasizes the complementarity of the Nabucco project and the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector (AGRI), Alexandru Gradinar, 1st Secretary with Romania's Embassy in Austria responsible for economic and energy affairs told Agerpres on the occasion of the European Gas Conference 2011 held in Vienna.
'Demand for natural gas is projected to grow to a volume between 50 billion and 150 billion cubic meters a year in the 2020 - 2025 horizon, and this requires new sources and transportation routes, primarily in the Caspian region and Iraq, so as to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas. Many Central and East European countries rely on Russian natural gas to an extent of over 70 percent,' he explained.
The pipelines of the Southern Corridor, which includes the Nabucco pipeline, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), White Stream, and ITGI (the Turkey-Greece-Italy) have been presented both as competing, and as complementing projects. The European projects are indeed in a sort of competition for the 10 billion cubic meters a year Azerbaijan has promised the West European market. The supporters of the ITGI and TAP projects argue that the 10 billion cubic meters would be sufficient for the capacity of these pipelines, while this volume would be just one third of Nabucco's capacity. The decision as to what projects should be built first will be reached by the end of 2011, said Gradinar. Almost 100 political personalities, managers and executives in the European natural gas industry, experts from the industry, banking and academics attended the conference in Vienna.