Reuters: Iran can participate in the European-Union backed gas Nabucco pipeline if Washington normalises relations with Tehran, the U.S. Secretary of State's Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy said on Thursday.
ANKARA, June 4 (Reuters) – Iran can participate in the European-Union backed gas Nabucco pipeline if Washington normalises relations with Tehran, the U.S. Secretary of State's Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy said on Thursday.
The Nabucco pipeline, conceived as a way to decrease Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas has been unable to find sufficient throughput for the 31 billion cubic metre pipeline.
The project is competing with the rival Russian-backed South Stream project to feed growing European gas consumption.
Nabucco consortium member Turkey has supported Iran's participation in the project, but the idea has been largely dismissed due to U.S. opposition to Iran's participation in the pipeline.
Iran has the world's second largest gas reserves, almost 16 percent of the world's total, but currently has no major net exports, partly because U.S. and U.N. sanctions have deterred investment by Western firms with expertise and technology.
Special Envoy Richard Morningstar also said that the United States supported the supply of natural gas from northern Iraq to Europe through the pipeline, an idea put forward by a group of European and Arab energy companies last month.
However Baghdad has said it would block the $8 billion project. (Reporting by Zerin Elci, Writing by Thomas Grove; Editing by Keiron Henderson)
