The 3 Seas Summit starts today in Bucharest. Therefore, here’s an update from one of our previous EnVal-s on a project that is on the Summit Agenda – the BRUA pipeline.
Work on the European Commission-backed BRUA pipeline – the 478 mil EUR gas corridor helping to diversify sources of gas in Central-Eastern Europe – is well on track according to Transgaz, the Romanian gas transmission system operator. Construction works on the compressor stations have begun back in April, while works on the pipeline corridor itself started in June. On August 22 Transgaz CEO Ion Sterian announced that the laying of the actual steel pipes has begun at the western-end of the 478km long pipeline. The company reiterated that it has the resources and capacity to complete the pipeline on time, at the end of 2019.
Also on August 22, Transgaz announced that it is at the same time busy preparing the plans for the 360 mil EUR Tuzla-Podișor pipeline, which will connect the Black Sea gas resources to the BRUA corridor. The 308km long pipeline will also link with the Trans-Balkan Pipeline, thereby opening-up the possibility for Romanian Black Sea gas to be exported to Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria. Transgaz will take the final investment decision on this project later this year, the estimates being that the pipeline would be ready for commercial operation in 2020.
In our last EnVal, emailed on Sept. 10, we briefly evaluated the foundations for an LNG trade agreement between the U.S. and the EU as meetings took place in Brussels.
We also wrote two short progress reports on TAP and the Ukraine-EU relations. As the EU scraps anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar panels, we look at the potential for this measure to help increase the European sector’s competitiveness. Last but not least, we briefly analyze the implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) developments for the energy sector.
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