Press Release Summary: Supply shortfalls, regulatory gaps and growing competition all pose serious risks to a high-profile plan to pipe natural gas from central Asia to southern Europe, despite near-completion of part of the project, energy experts said October 25.
Press Release Body: Spiros Paleoyannis, vice-chairman of the Athens-based Institute of Energy for Southeast Europe, said the South European Gas Ring project, which aims to pipe some 11.5 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkey to Italy via Greece via a 800 kilometer (500 mile) pipeline network, faces an uncertain future despite a special EU derogation that sweetens the deal.
\"A lot of regulatory gaps and uncertainties still exist, which could delay its completion and cut into profits once operative,\" Paleoyannis said. The route runs through an environmentally sensitive, earthquake-prone region and needs more study, while investors are holding back over doubts there will be enough gas to fill it. He was speaking at a conference on energy and development. The interconnector also faces \"fierce competition\" from alternative sources, including Russia, Norway and North Africa, and from producers of liquid natural gas, for which production costs have fallen sharply.
Greece\'s government announced this week that Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis will travel to Turkey next month for the opening of the Turkish-Greek leg.
2022
