Brussels, 16/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - Recent events in North Africa and the Middle East and their implications for EU energy security were central to the debate at a public hearing in the European Parliament on Wednesday 15 June, organised jointly by the energy and foreign affairs committees. A broad consensus of opinion was to be found among speakers on the need to strengthen interconnectors between member states and also with neighbouring non-EU countries. The Nabucco and South Stream gas pipeline projects also aroused a great deal of interest.
Chief Executive of Italian energy giant ENI Paolo Scaroni, the top name guest speaker invited by the chairmen of the energy and foreign affairs committees - Herbert Reul (EPP, Germany) and Gabriele Albertini (EPP, Italy) respectively - stressed the need of the EU to strengthen connections on its internal gas market to counter any risk of interruption of supply. Though Italy is handling the loss of one of its supply sources, namely Libya, rather well, Scaroni predicts a “very serious situation” if a second source of supply were lost, particularly if this were to happen in winter. Italy, which, since the start of the conflict in February, has lost its supply of Libyan gas delivered through the Greenstream pipeline, had already, during the Tunisian revolution, been confronted with a 40% fall in supplies of Algerian gas transiting through Tunisia. Though the loss of Libyan gas has been “a lot more difficult”, Italy has been able to meet the challenge by finding alternatives on the global market, including by using its LNG terminals. For safety, however, Scaroni insisted on the need to reinforce interconnections. “We must be resolute in the quest for a proper interconnected gas network”, he said, highlighting the case of Spain which has several LNG terminals but poor connections with the rest of Europe. This was borne out by Francisco de la Flor Garcia of Spanish gas company Enagas, who said that, during the 2009 gas crisis, Spain had more gas than it needed but was unable to send it to Central and Eastern Europe whose supplies of Russian gas, transiting through Ukraine, were cut off for several days. Flor Garcia also stressed the “major role” that Spain and Portugal could play in assuring the security of the EU's gas supply, if they were well connected with the rest of Europe.
In addition to interconnectors, Scaroni also highlighted long-term gas contracts and infrastructure. He defended the Italo-Russian gas pipeline project, led jointly by ENI and Gazprom, and soon to be joined by French energy group EDF and the German Wintershall, which will, from 2015, carry up to 63 billion cubic metres of Russian gas per year to the Community market, along a pipeline under the Black Sea, thereby avoiding Ukraine. Scaroni stressed that South Stream “is not competing with” Nabucco, the pan-European gas pipeline which will carry gas from the Caspian Sea region and Central Asia to the EU, via Turkey. He did not believe that this was a sound, viable project, given that it depends solely on consumer partner countries, with no guarantees of upstream supplies. This view was counterbalanced by Jean Arnold Vinois, Head of Unit at DG Energy of the Commission, who described Nabucco as an “absolutely essential” project for the security of EU supply, in that it ensured three key points in terms of diversification; a new route, new sources and new partners - unlike the South Stream project which, while providing a new route, relies on a well-known supplier, Russian gas company Gazprom. Speaking in the debate, MEPs Claude Turmes (Greens, Luxembourg), Fiorello Provera (EFD, Italy) and Francesco de Angelis (S&D, Italy) all also highlighted the excessive dependence on Russian gas. (E.H./transl.rt)