Brussels, 23/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - European Commission Vice-President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic is sceptical about Turkish Stream (the Russian project for a new gas pipeline to Turkey) being able to send gas to the EU while by-passing Ukraine. “The capacity foreseen for the project, some 63 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year, surpasses demand from potential customers, including Turkey and South Eastern Europe. A first assessment is that this would not work”, Sefcovic states in an interview in The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos on Thursday 22 January.
Sefcovic also rejects the warnings of Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Russian gas company Gazprom, that the EU should start building interconnection infrastructure to the Turkish-Greek border immediately if it wants to receive Russian gas beyond 2019 when the gas contract between Gazprom and Ukraine expires. “I believe the Russians will have to look at this option again and come up with a viable economic solution that's also acceptable to the European partners”, he said.
Sefcovic also stated that the EU was ready to ensure mediation in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine for a new gas agreement, which will take over from the winter 2014-15 package that expires in March. “We are tired of being worried every summer if we would have enough energy in the winter. The biggest economy in the world shouldn't have such a worry and the biggest customer who pays €400 billion a year shouldn't be worried if somebody will keep energy flowing when we pay for it”, Sefcovic added. (EH)