Welcome to the first edition of TAP's electronic newsletter
We are pleased to announce the publication of the first issue of e-News, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) quarterly electronic newsletter.
TAP e-News will be published quarterly to provide a rundown of TAP’s progress and any other relevant news. Each edition of e-News will feature a Thought Piece, analyzing recent events or issues that are relevant to the Southern Gas Corridor in general. In the first edition, TAP’s e-News takes a look at the political challenges facing the Southern Gas Corridor.
About TAPTrans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is an intended pipeline project, measuring 520km in length that will transport natural gas from the Caspian Sea and Middle East regions to Europe. The gas pipeline will start in Greece near Thessaloniki, cross Albania and the Adriatic Sea, and enter Italy near Brindisi. Upstream and downstream, TAP will tie into the existing national gas systems in Greece and Italy. The project is aimed at enhancing both the security and the diversification of gas supplies for the European markets. Currently, the TAP project is in the front-end engineering design stage (FEED). TAP is a joint venture of the Swiss EGL Group and Norway's StatoilHydro.
IN THIS ISSUE: This month, e-News looks at the Trans Adriatic Pipeline project’s progress in Albania and Italy as it continues the refinement of possible pipeline routings. This newsletter also includes its first feature Thought Piece on Europe's energy conundrum and looks at what needs to happen in order to secure new energy supplies for Europe.
Update on TAP’s progress: TAP reviews six routes in Albania as part of its route refinement processTAP spent the summer in Albania collecting data as part of its route refinement process. The project mobilized over 40 professionals to review a total of six different routing options for the TAP pipeline in Albania.
Over a three-month period, a team consisting of social and environmental scientists, pipeline engineers and cultural heritage specialists, among others, carried out assessments based on specific criteria and collected data in the Korca, Permet and Corodova regions. Studies included an assessment of the pipeline's viability from an engineering and technical point of view and the collection of data on the surrounding natural habitat and wildlife. It also identified the agricultural areas and cultural heritage sites that would possibly be affected by any pipeline routing. The team also met with 14 local governments (communes) and 41 settlements in and around the Korca, Permet and Corovoda areas to introduce the TAP project, as well as start an open and positive dialogue with these communities and residents.
Kai Schmidt-Soltau, TAP’s Manager on environmental and social issues said: "Local residents appreciated TAP’s efforts to identify the potential social, environmental and cultural heritage impacts of a specific route. Some of the local officials we met told us that that TAP was one of the very first foreign projects to engage openly in public consultation with the administration and local residents."
TAP will now assess findings from the summer’s fieldwork to identify the optimum, technically feasible pipeline route. This would also circumvent the Hotova National Park (a protected natural reserve area in the Permet region) and in particular, its core zone.
Once decided, the final route will be presented to the Albanian authorities for authorization by the end of this year. Following this, TAP will progress to the next stage and begin its scoping work for the detailed Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) required for the Albanian section of the gas pipeline route. Back to top »
Update on TAP’s progress: TAP meets with Italian agencies & authorities to discuss preferred pipeline route proposal TAP this month meets with Italian agencies & authorities in the Apulia region to discuss the TAP project and preferred pipeline route proposal, which avoids Natura 2000 areas.
In October, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is meeting local officials and agencies in Apulia to discuss its preferred pipeline route in Italy. Route refinement is an important stage in TAP’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Process and the aim is to gain valuable feedback from local agencies and public officials on the proposed routing.
TAP’s intention is to engage with all stakeholders in an open and constructive dialogue in advance of any decision on the exact pipeline routing and construction work. In line with national and EU requirements, TAP’s preferred route avoids the Natura 2000 sites located to the south and north of Brindisi, which contain important oceanic habitats for Posidonia sea grass.
Christian Falck, TAP's Technical Director, said: "Following detailed studies, which showed that the initial pipeline routing would cross a Natura 2000 area near Brindisi, TAP decided to review another, longer alternative to avoid the Natura 2000 site. This is now the preferred pipeline route option. TAP takes health, safety and the environment very seriously. We are making every effort to consult local stakeholders and listen to their concerns prior to any final routing decisions or construction work. TAP plans to build the pipeline to the highest technical specifications and standards, and to make it one of the best and safest of Italy’s existing pipelines". Back to top »
TAP’s Quarterly “Thought Piece”
Europe's energy conundrum: new gas pipelines will have to be built despite the many political challengesDuring the presidency of José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission succeeded in setting energy and climate change targets for Europe until 2020. In order to meet these ambitious goals, Europe will have to secure additional gas supplies from new sources. Arve Thorvik, senior external relations advisor with the TAP project, describes the political challenges standing in the way of a new supply route, the so-called Southern Gas Corridor.
The "Barroso 1" European Commission is about to clean out its drawers and leave town. Some of the familiar faces will appear in the revised-format "Barroso 2" in the New Year, now that the Irish have finally passed the Treaty of Lisbon and provided Prague produces no new crisis. President Barroso recently summarized his team's three top three achievements as follows: its handling of the financial crisis, and the drafting and ratification of energy and climate change packages. While commentators will certainly differ on the first item, there is little doubt among policy-shapers and -makers around Europe that the 2020 energy and climate targets developed, presented and adopted in the space of a couple of years went far beyond most people's expectations. The next big challenges will be, first, to translate these ambitious goals into actionable and binding obligations on each of the member states, and, second, to ensure that the rest of the world is prepared to move in the same direction, notably at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in November.
So what are the main challenges facing achievement of the so-called 20/20 goals? I believe the new Commissioner for energy and climate (this is one of the rumoured possible changes to the structure) will have to focus on a number of complex and partly conflicting issues. In a nutshell, while many Europeans would like to see both fossil fuels and nuclear power disappear, there is little probability of credible, viable and affordable clean alternatives in the foreseeable future. I believe that when my one-year-old grandchild turns 50, the world - and Europe - will still be dependent on fossil and nuclear fuels. And if we are to achieve our not overly ambitious goal of an increase in global temperatures of no more than two degrees, we will need greater energy efficiency, higher energy prices, a reduction in driving and fuel consumption, and lower consumption of plastic goods. It will mean the introduction of carbon footprint tracking, etc. And it means that Europe will become increasingly dependent on the fossil fuel with the lowest CO² levels: gas.
Europe, including the North Sea, no longer has an abundance of gas. From now on, imports are set to increase annually in absolute and relative terms. There is no way we can escape this fact in the short term: there are no big oil and gas discoveries on the horizon; the pace of renewables is far too slow to have an impact; and coal is "the ugly guy" on the climate block. The EU is therefore bound to import more, not less, gas – the low-carbon fossil alternative. This will necessitate getting more gas from Russia, building new pipelines to access resources in the Caspian, sorting out the politics around imports from Iran and Iraq, and establishing a workable relationship with Turkey. In addition, the EU will have to compete with India and China for LNG supplies in a global market at a time when the EU industries are struggling to pay their bills.
More gas means first and foremost more pipelines. A pipeline is an artery binding a well in a remote area like Siberia or the Caspian Sea with the cook at a Paris restaurant, and the radiator of a townhouse in Milan. While a shipload of crude oil may crisscross the oceans and change ownership umpteen times before passing through a refinery, being trucked to a petrol station, and ending up in the fuel tank of your new hybrid car, gas is different: If a wellhead closes down in Siberia, or if the Ukrainians do not want to let it flow, you will get cold.
Take the directness of the gas artery, add the not-so-simple relations that exist with producing countries like Russia, the "–stan" republics of Central Asia, the Iraqi challenges, and the Iranian issue, sprinkle it with a dash of issues existing in countries such as Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey, and you have all the ingredients for a political gas time bomb. That is why setting up a gas corridor that will enable the gas to flow thousands of kilometres to that gas burner in continental Europe poses such an enormous challenge.
Any gasman (and, yes, they are still, mostly, men), whether they are building Nordstream, Nabucco or the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, will tell you that crossing mountains high and oceans deep is normally a piece of cake compared with all the other challenges. By these, they mean all the agreements and treaties that need to be negotiated and signed. These are about transit tariffs, about the national parks that have to be circumvented, about archaeological treasures that need to be protected, and about local communities that want their fair share of something. That is why Things Take Time. And before the barges, the bulldozers, and the welders can move in, all these things have to be in place.
Politics is not an easy game – not only for engineers. There is something different about the logic of politics. It is not necessarily the logic of the marketplace or of the drawing board. But if the gas is going to flow, the politicians and the gasmen need to talk. We need the most rational, cost-effective and secure solutions, not merely the one with the most political appeal. The Southern Gas Corridor, designed to bring new gas to Europe, can only be realized if these different forms of logic are able to mesh. Let us hope that the logic of the calculator, and the logic of the market place get a say. Ultimately, the Southern Corridor needs to supply that heater with gas in the safest, fastest and least expensive way possible. This is our ultimate objective, not the construction of a political animal.
Arve Thorvik is a Senior External Relations Advisor with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline project. He has more than 30 years experience in foreign relations and European Union Affairs. Arve studied political science and entered the Norwegian Foreign Service in 1973. During his 16-year foreign service tenure he worked on various international assignments in Lagos, Geneva and Washington DC. In 1997 Arve joined StatoilHydro as Senior Vice-President for Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) at headquarters in Stavanger. In 2004 he established and developed StatoilHydro’s European Union Affairs Office in Brussels. Back to top »
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