1 September 2008
AssA-Irada

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he would press European leaders to increase funding to the NABUCCO gas pipeline to source energy from the Caspian Sea, in a bid to reduce dependency on Russian energy.

“I will encourage European partners to use our collective bargaining power rather than seek separate energy deals with Russia,” Brown said in an article in Sunday's Observer newspaper entitled “This is how we will stand up to Russia's naked aggression”.

“No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe…Without urgent action, we risk sleepwalking into an energy dependence on less stable or reliable partners."

Brown wrote that the events of August have shown the critical importance of diversifying energy supply. The tenfold increase in the world oil price in the past decade has demonstrated that diversification from oil is also an economic necessity, he said.

Brown said states such as Russia are increasingly using their energy resources as policy tools.

“We must more rapidly build relationships with other producers of oil and gas. Our response must include a redoubling of our efforts to complete a single market in gas and electricity, a collective defence to secure our energy supplies.”

The NABUCCO project worth 8 billion euros aims to deliver 30 billion cubic meters of gas to European markets through a 3,300-kilometer pipeline through Azerbaijan and Turkey to Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria. Transportation of first gas via the pipe is expected in 2013. Only Azerbaijan has agreed to transport its gas via NABUCCO so far.