Nabucco strikes back

摘要

Europe's plans to reduce its energy dependence on Russia received a major boost July 13 with the signing by the heads of the five transit countries of the planned Nabucco natural gas pipeline of a long-awaited intergovernmental agreement setting out the terms of the pipeline's operation. In an equally important development for the project, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, offered to supply enough gas to fill half the capacity of the proposed 31 billion cubic meter/year pipeline, which would ship gas from the Caspian and Middle East regions to Austria via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.