This week Greece signed an agreement with the natural
gas company Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to construct beginning in 2014 the
gas pipeline. The pipeline, having a distance of 550 kilometers, passing through
Northern Greece (the region in the European Union with the highest
unemployment), will transport natural gas to Italy and Europe. The pipeline
already is built in Turkey and Azerbaijan.
The construction will have an immediate creation of
2,700 jobs and 500 at the end of the project for maintenance. It will mean
35billion euros for the Greek Treasury, and the consortium composed in the
investment is headed by BP. The investment will cost $40 billion in natural gas
deposits.
The gas pipeline will have a life of 50 years, which
is the life expectancy of gas pipelines, will produce 10 billion cubic meters
per year, will add 320 million euros to the Greek GNP, and 1.2 billion euros in
tax revenue.
The advantages of this pipeline are that it is faster,
has a shorter route and if we look at the map, part of it will go underwater to
Italy. It is not in the provision for Greece to consume natural gas from this
pipeline.
The other competitor was Nabuco west but this would
not have been built through Greece
Nabuco was also favored by the United States since the
pipeline would have passed through Bulgaria, a country exerting influence on
the United States.
By building this gas pipeline, Europe would limit its
dependency upon Russia, places Greece in the Energy map as key player in
Europe, enhances its security, and perhaps relations between Greece and Turkey may be better.
The joint consortium is composed of the Azeri state company Socar along with BP and the French Total.
Two thirds of Azerbaijan is rich in oil and natural
gas. The region of the Lesser Caucasus accounts for most of the country's gold,
silver, iron, copper, titanium, chromium, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum,
complex ore and antimony. In September 1994, a 30-year contract was signed
between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and 13 oil
companies, among them Amoco, BP, ExxonMobil, Lukoil and Statoil. As Western oil
companies are able to tap deepwater oilfields untouched by the Soviet
exploitation, Azerbaijan is considered one of the most important spots in the
world for oil exploration and development.
The Republic of Azerbaijan
is the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western
Asia and Eastern Europe. It is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia
to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the
south.
