During the approximately 10-year-long negotiations, the Bakü-Ceyhan pipeline project has faced thousands of snags while intrigues became a very common practice. This was because of the very nature of the critical importance of hydrocarbon resources both for users and for those who supply them.
Therefore, Baku-Ceyhan, being the first project by-passing Russia, though it has a longer route, than carrying oil via the strategically important and highly busy Turkish Straits making it less economic, was subject to close scrutiny. But strong US support lent to the project, with the aim of preventing Russia becoming the sole source of the then newly discovered hydrocarbon riches of the Caucasus and Central Asian countries by the West after the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, has played a significant role in turning Baku-Ceyhan into a viable and feasible project.
Turkey, an amateur at the time to be engaged in such critical diplomacy as energy, made many mistakes during the negotiations for this first pipeline project. On the Nabucco negotiations, too, there have been times that energy-scarce Turkey has come up with demands, such as a 15 percent claim of Nabucco gas, while busying itself with some political details that played a role in jeopardizing the gas deal.
Turkey has, at the last minute, abandoned its demand of 15 percent of the gas at discounted prices, either for domestic consumption or for re-export. But the Turkish pipeline company BOTAS' general director, Saltuk Duzyol, told the press on Monday that it was impossible to talk about a sacrifice made by Turkey. “But we will continue working [with other Nabucco partners] on a viable mechanism in the markets,” he said. The Turkish demand could have killed off Nabucco as a viable business proposition, a Western energy expert believed.
Finally, however, the Nabucco gas pipeline received a political boost after almost seven-year-long negotiations, when the prime ministers of Turkey, as well as European Union (EU) members Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary approved the deal in Ankara last Monday.
The 3,300-kilometer-long Nabucco is intended to supply some of European energy needs reducing its reliance on Russia which provides over a quarter of Europe's gas. The volume of gas from Nabucco in the best case is no more than 5 per cent of Europe's consumption.
Nabucco will stretch from the Azerbaijani oil fields in the Caspian Sea region to western Europe. The pipeline construction is planned to begin in 2011 with the first gas to flow in 2014.
Once the governmental agreement was signed last Monday, the biggest question mark now raised is the absence of supplier contracts to fill this pipeline intended to have the capacity of carrying 31 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Added to the problem is the financing of the project though European investment banks who made a pledge of earmarking certain amounts for the project.
In addition, Turkey has been engaged in a dispute with Azerbaijan, a major potential Nabucco supplier, complicating Europe's efforts to secure Azerbaijani gas delivery pledges.
Turkish diplomatic sources state, however, that problems among the two nations were overcome. Turkmenistan on Friday said it is prepared to provide natural gas to the project while Azerbaijan signaled a possible contribution and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki stated they will supply gas to Nabucco.
US special energy envoy Richard Morningstar on Sunday, however, reiterated Washington's opposition to the possible use of Iranian gas in Nabucco until Iran's nuclear program issue is settled. He did say, however, that Russia could possibly join the project.
The Nabucco pipeline is seen as a rival to Russia's South Stream pipeline, which is to route Central Asian gas through Russia, Ukraine and the Balkans to Italy.
However, the Nabucco consortium believes that Russian involvement in Nabucco will help Moscow to learn how to play the game on free market rules.
Despite gas supply concerns over Nabucco, since there are no agreements signed to this end, there is an increased belief that in the coming 10 years Iraq, after Azerbaijan, will become a major gas supplier despite concerns over the former's ongoing serious inner conflicts and the poor state of its hydrocarbon infrastructure.
The hopes are that Nabucco will turn into a reality rather than staying as a dream project despite existing serious road blocks.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recalled in his remarks during the signing ceremony for Nabucco in Ankara that once the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project was also defined as a dream, too, and he believed that Nabucco will also be a success story.
As has been the case in the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, US support will be important in making Nabucco a success story.
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