After a winter of discontent in regards to the on-off supplies of Russia’s natural gas, members of the European Union (EU) are expected to turn their attentions to Iraq in an attempt to find alternative suppliers to meet their energy requirements.
News agency Reuters has reported that a summit of European and Central Asian being held in Prague on May 8 will try to reach agreement on establishing a “southern corridor” that could transport gas via a pipeline through Turkey.
The EU hopes to sign a deal with Turkey by June and is keen to begin talks with Iraq.
The summit, part of the Czech Republic’s six month tenure as EU president, hopes to persuade central Asian gas producing nations such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to sell their gas to the EU as opposed to Russia and Iran.
“How can you create a gas market, or any market, if you have one or two inputs? The only thing that will happen is that prices will skyrocket,” an official from the Czech Republic is quoted by Reuters as saying.
“For those countries, the EU has for 15 years just been talking and not being serious. We are trying to persuade people in the EU to put their money where their mouths are,” he added.
Tensions over Russian gas supplies this past winter has led the 27-nation EU to focus on alternative supplies. Russia cut the supply after a price row erupted with neighbouring Ukraine. This led to several other countries suffering massive disruptions in their supplies.
Recently Poland and Bulgaria have courted Qatar about supplying LNG. Poland signed an agreement with the GCC state while Bulgaria is keen on building a LNG facility in the country that could process some of Qatar’s vast reserves of natural gas.
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