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September 12, 2012

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Special Report - Construction On South Stream To Begin in December - Why Is The West Afraid?

credit - defencenet
The news of the day is that the construction of the South Stream pipeline is going to begin in December without Greece which was geostrategically defeated or better yet totally dismantled in less than three years because it attempted to be a part of this project.

The first announcement was made on Wednesday in both Russia and Serbia. The latter country is finally taking a stand and assuming the role that was mandated by its very oppressed people. It is a sovereign nation and has national and political support from its longstanding ally Russia.

So much so that in 1999 -during the crisis in Serbia- Moscow tried to help Serbia, but unfortunately it did not achieve the results it wanted. Its fleet was not in top condition to leave the Black Sea, and the Kremlin was only able to mobilize its paratroopers who scored a symbolic victory in Pristina by occupying the first airport. The celebrations of course did not last for very long because they were forced to surrender it to the British.

But this is 2012 and its not 1999. Serbia is back on its feet and Russia once again resembles the superpower it once was, especially in its periphery. The construction of the Serbian part of South Stream will thus commence in December 2012, as announced a few hours ago by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Nikolic even formally invited Putin to attend the launching ceremony of the construction, and the Russian President already accepted. As such, these two Orthodox forces will reconnect once again -strategically speaking of course- in a totally different democratic environment.

The South Stream gas pipeline is intended to transport approximately 63 billion cubic meters of natural gas to central and southern Europe, diversifying Russian gas routes away from transit countries such as Ukraine.

Commenting on the anti-trust complaints brought by the European Commission against Russia's Gazprom, Putin expressed his hope to the Voice of Russia that the problem would soon be overcome.

The South Stream project, along with the twin North Stream, are key to Russia’s strategy of maintaining completely secure energy supply to Europe, the point being to insulate the Russian gas export from the risks generated by policy swings in transit countries. Over the past years, neglect for transit obligations or unauthorized withdrawal of gas by Ukraine and Belarus occasionally left Europe’s energy reserves running low, a problem which will never arise when both pipelines are phased in. North Stream and South Stream are intended to combine into an integrated energy supply network which will make Europe immune to the consequences of Kyeiv’s and Minsk’s unpredictability.

Parallel to this, and on the other side of the Black Sea, construction another pipeline will begin (the submerged part) in the area of Anapa on the Russian coast. The pipeline is expected to pass through the Turkish EEZ, and will then pass through Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and the remaining section will either be submerged in Italian waters or pass through Slovenia.

Russia has already signed intergovernmental agreements with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Austria and Croatia for the purpose of implementing the onshore pipeline section in Europe. They have also signed a long-term pricing agreement for Russian natural gas. However, the final investment decision on the project will not be made until November 15, 2012.

Nabucco on the other hand, which is so greatly endorsed by the West, aims to bring Caspian gas supplies to Europe to reduce dependence on Russian gas imports taking a northern route from the Turkish-Bulgarian border to Austria.

Wikipedia says that this project is backed by several European Union states and especially the United States and is seen as rival to the Gazprom-Eni South Stream pipeline project. At the same time, there are some doubts concerning viability of supplies. The main supplier is expected to be several countries who are currently experiencing political, social and economic turmoil, namely Iraq with potential supplies from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Egypt. Preparations for the Nabucco project started in 2002 and the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria was signed on July 13, 2009. The project is developed by the consortium of six companies. If (and that is a big IF) built, the pipeline is expected to be operational by 2017. The consortium has submitted a modified project called Nabucco-West, which does not include the Turkish section of the pipeline. In 2012, some analysts began saying that Nabucco is unlikely to be built due to changed political situation and competing projects. The final investment decision by the Nabucco consortium is expected in 2012.

After surfing the web we discovered that Nabucco’s consortium of stakeholders are (surprise... surprise...) European energy and utility companies such as Austria’s oil and gas company OMV, Hungary’s MOL, the state-owned Rumanian Transgas, the state-owned Bulgarian BEH, the Turkish state-owned BOTAS and Germany’s utility-behemoth and majority stakeholder RWE.

(No wonder "they" suddenly bankrupted us... and attempted to assassinate our prime minister for signing on with the South Stream project, because it did not serve their interests. It makes perfect sense now).

Aside from repeated delays due to various problems which are expected to kill the original plan, the project began receiving a bad rap, beginning with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who apparently stated publicly that the planned Nabucco natural gas pipeline for Europe was in “trouble“. After his statement, the Financial Times reported on April 26 that MOL, the Hungarian member of the Nabucco consortium was pulling out of the project and withdrawing further financing. Obviously this was a major blow to Europe’s most ambitious infrastructure project and European Energy Security. On its part, the Nabucco consortium said it would proceed regardless of what MOL decided to do, but given the present global economic crisis, financing problems can get worse, especially in (austerity) Europe. Obviously, Nabucco in its present-day shape stands no chance. Even BP, a heavyweight in the partnership, sounds skeptical about the future of this project. In fact BP officer Jean Cohen is known to have said that the consortium cultivating the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan no longer believes in Nabucco as the pertinent transit avenue. Taking the statement into account, one has to draw a radical conclusion that the amount of resources to sustain the Nabucco project exactly equals zero.

Clearly the South-Stream project was the only choice. It was ready to be placed into motion and even the TAP project (another pipeline) was also a far better choice over Nabucco.

Even Bulgaria could not deny the South Stream project since 90% of its energy needs depend on Russian natural gas, and even if it refused to allow the pipeline to pass through its boarders (because of pressure from the West) then it would have passed through another country such as Romania, etc...  Like we said... it was a project that was ready to be put into motion, it was not in the works, or being designed, it was just ready to go unlike its competitor Nabucco.

The bottom line is that the Nabucco has a disadvantage against its competitors in the Caspian Sea region, because in order to compete with the South Stream pipeline it would need to tap Iranian gas supplies in the medium term.

(Now do you understand why there is so much commotion in the M.East?)

Speaking about the South-Stream pipeline, unconfirmed reports claim that Russia is going to obligate countries to guard the pipeline with specialized forces, at least in nodal points, but again this is only a rumor. So aside from Russian gas, word from energy circles claim that South Stream will also bring Russian "advisers" with it as well.

If Greece had not missed this rare and golden opportunity -which was totally trashed when George Papandreou came to power- both the South-Stream project as well as the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline would have placed a Russian armed force between Greece and Turkey. The two NATO countries would have given Washington a cold sweat and would have never been afraid of a sudden clash at its boarders with Turkey. This is probably where Papandreou's close confident, and personal advisor (also said to be special envoy on energy issues for the US) took a lead role. Rondos is well trained on how to play the game in cases such as these. Who is Alex Rondos? Click here to find out...

In conclusion it is fair to predict that Europe will certainly continue with the Nabucco project - despite all the setbacks - with the ultimate goal of eventually moving away from Russian energy dependence. As for the US, well there is no doubt that the Russia-US energy game will continue.

Interestingly in 1945 the US State Department described the energy resources as top trophies in world history, and maintaining a grip on them worldwide has continued to rank high on Washington’s agenda ever since. (We all know that)

The conflict we see in Syria for example is all connected to this Russian-US energy war. In fact Washington is now openly admitting it and for the first time in the post-Cold War era, the US Department of State’s Congressional Budget Justification, Fiscal Year 2012 called for limiting Russia’s growing influence on the energy market and, in line with the objective, for preventing an energy alliance between Russia and Europe. The document apparently listed, among other US priorities, the construction of pipelines bypassing Russia and connecting the Caspian region and Central Asia to West Europe while financially and otherwise impeding the implementation of Moscow’s projects aimed at energy transit across the Balkans.

And oh yes... it should also be noted that Washington’s record of pursuing US energy interests on a global scale include military campaigns in both Iraq and Libya.

As for the rest of us... a golden opportunity is now lost thanks to Papandreou and his cronies...

Editor's Note - We cannot cry over spilled milk, a historic opportunity to finally develop our country and change its fate was lost all thanks to anti-Hellenes (or even agents) who worked for the interests of other nations to endorse their own personal careers -and certainly to fatten their wallets-.  This is not an endorsement for Costas Karamanlis, this is the bitter truth. This landmark agreement which was achieved by his government several years ago would have generated thousands of jobs for our country and Greece on the global energy map. Turkey, as well as all of our other enemies would have thought twice before attempting to intimidate us again Clearly... it was sabotaged.. to serve Western interests. What should be noted here is that Karamanlis was not moved by all the threats that were thrown his way by the West... the only thing that destroyed him and allowed Papandreou and his cronies to gain power was that he lost his popularity with the people. Only the people of Greece can bring about change in this cash-strapped country, no one else. So there is no sense in shedding tears, There projects will now benefit other countries and not ours, courtesy of Mr. Papandreou, and of course his close advisor Mr. Rondos, who was also implicated in the attempted assassination plot of Costas Karamanlis (meaning he was briefed about the plan to assassinate him, and was also implicated in the official investigation which is currently underway in Greece). It is a sad day for Greece, because clearly the West wants to continue to have Greece underground. They will never allow us to get our head out of the water. As for Turkey, well it will continue to threaten us on our East (on behalf of the West of course since it is their puppet) and whenever we do not do the bidding of the West one day they will bankrupt us, send warships to intimidate us, or even attempt to overthrow or even to assassinate our leaders for simply doing what is in the best interest of our county. This is not our war... its the US and Russia's war... Greece was just unfortunately caught in the middle.

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