Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan said that Azerbaijan's share in the much-anticipated Nabucco natural gas pipeline project may increase from 10 percent to 25 percent, the News.az news agency reported on December 8.
With other supplies from Central Asia or the Middle East a distant perspective, Azerbaijan is considered to be the sole reliable supplier of gas for the pipeline, an outlet designed to curtail Russian dominance of Caspian Sea gas exports to Europe. Azerbaijan so far has offered to supply only 10 percent of the total Nabucco gas supply, while the rest would be pumped by corporate operators such as BP, Statoil and Total, the Trend news agency reported.
Erdogan said that Baku's share may increase, but this will have implications for the price charged by Azerbaijan for selling gas, and for the transit fees that Turkey intends to charge. Some 1,400 kilometers of the pipeline are projected to run across Turkey. Turkish and Azerbaijani haggling over transit fees and gas prices has contributed to a delay in Nabucco's kickoff.
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