The EU has offered Nigeria financial and political backing for a 21 billion US dollar trans-Saharan pipeline to pump its gas directly to Europe.
Renewed European interest in the project comes against a backdrop of mounting fears that Gazprom, the Russian gas-monopoly, is intent on winning access to Nigerias vast gas reserves as part of a strategy to tighten its grip on energy supplies to Europe.
Andris Piebalgs, the EU energy commissioner, who visited Nigeria last week, said though that much of the West African countrys gas reserves were already under the control of joint ventures between western majors and the the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
Russia already supplies a quarter of the gas consumed in the EU and has sought to increase its control by seeking deals with producers such as Nigeria and Libya, and backing moves to form an Opec-style gas cartel.
EU officials say the 4.300 km pipeline could supply 20 billion cubic metres a year of gas to Europe by 2016. The EU-bloc consumes some 300 billion cubic metres a year but demand is projected to double by 2030, prompting a search for new sources from the Caspian Basin to Iraq and Qatar as production inside the EU declines.
Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil company, backs the trans-Saharan pipeline scheme but a consortium to finance and build it has yet to emerge. There is also the issue of security, with militants in Nigerias gas-producing Niger Delta, Tuareg rebels in Niger, and Islamist groups in Algeria who may see the pipeline as a very tempting target.
Nigeria has the worlds seventh largest gas reserves.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
