Gaz de France: Nabucco’s lucky number seven

In line with President Nicolas Sarkozy’s expanding diplomatic energy policy, French company GDF Suez is interested in Gazprom’s Nord Stream and EU-backed Nabucco gas pipelines while domestic competitor EDF Group is interested in the Russia-backed South Stream gas project.
“We’ve always said that we’re in principle open for a seventh partner if this new partner brings any value into the consortium,” Nabucco Gas Pipeline International spokesman Christian Dolezal told New Europe on 22 October. “The consortium at this time is not in negotiations with a potential new shareholder but if a concrete proposal comes on the table, the shareholders will, of course, discuss this offer,” he said.
During talks with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Sarkozy said France is interested in joining Nabucco. Moreover, shareholders OMV and RWE have reacted positively to the idea. “In principle I would say we appreciate of course this interest,” Dolezal said.
Turkey cut off talks in 2007 with GDF, which merged with Suez in 2008, over joining the project because of a French law that termed the killing of ethnic Armenians under the Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire as genocide. Dolezal reminded that all six Nabucco shareholders – Austria’s OMV, Germany’s RWE, Hungary’s Mol, Bulgargaz, Romania’s Transgaz and Turkey’s Botas would have to agree on adding a new partner. Hungary’s Parliament ratified an intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the Nabucco pipeline on 19 October.
Meanwhile, EDF is set to throw its weight behind Gazprom’s competing gas pipeline project in southern Europe. The French utility giant said it was ready to take a stake in the subsea section of the South Stream project. Gazprom and Italy’s ENI have created a 50-50 joint venture to build South Stream.
In addition to Nabucco, GDF Suez has been in talks with leading shareholder Gazprom, German companies E.ON Ruhrgas and BASF/Wintershall, and Dutch Gasunie to take a stake in the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which will carry gas from Russia to Germany and northern Europe via the Baltic Sea. “It confirms our confidence in the project that a large European company like GDF at this point in time would be willing to commit to the project,” Sebastian Sass, head of Nord Stream’s representation to the EU, told New Europe on 22 October.
France is looking at every possible way to secure gas supplies in the long term.  Sarkozy oversaw a huge deal with energy-rich Kazakhstan earlier in October. Moreover, French energy companies seek to secure gas supplies by investing in new delivery routes like Nord Stream, South Stream and Nabucco. “It is a question of energy security,” a French diplomat abroad told New Europe smiling when asked about Paris expressing interest in all these energy projects.
Obviously French companies are trying to expand and see which project is more realistic and which is going to be implemented  first. “It is very sober thinking,” a source working for Gazprom in Brussels told New Europe.
So far, projects are moving at different speeds and Nord Stream looks like it is leading the race. “They are planning to start construction so it is a very real thing, but they are negotiating intensely together,” the source said. “If you put yourself in the shoes of GDF, you want to join a project that has actually started.”
 

KGeropoulos@NEurope.eu