Ukraine presented six of its national projects in Istanbul on November 22. About 40 investors gathered to hear about the LNG regasification plant, Energy of Nature, Clean City, Olympic Hope-2022, construction of the Odesa-Reni highway and the ring road around Kyiv. However, it was the LNG regasification plant that aroused greatest interest and sparked most lively discussion among the investors. Let us recall that under this project’s assumptions, Ukraine would import up to 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year by 2017.
Considerable interest in the LNG regasification plant is easily explained by the fact that Turkey is the nation that Ukraine would need to cooperate with to diversify its energy resources imports through the project and secure smooth passage of ships through the Bosphorus, if need be. “To construct the LNG regasification plant, one must have guaranteed gas supplies first. We consider Turkish companies’ participation both as members of the LNG regasification plant consortium and as alternative gas suppliers as quite realistic options, for Turkey is a Black Sea nation, which is being transformed now into a major gas transit country and later, perhaps, a gas supplier, too,” The Day was told by Head of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects of Ukraine Vladyslav Kaskiv who was describing to us the details of his proposals to the Turkish investors.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Turkey Serhii Korsunsky informed The Day that during the meeting, the parties had begun negotiating technical issues of tankers’ passage through the Bosphorus to the future LNG plant. “The Bosphorus is open to us, according to the international convention. However, the strait carries very heavy traffic, and one must not expect regular passage of tankers, say, every Friday. There was a case when vessels had to wait for a month before the storm stopped in the Black Sea,” the diplomat explained in his reply to The Day’s question about prospects for the undisturbed passage of tankers through the Bosphorus.
Kaskiv, for his part, anticipates no significant difficulties, because the Ukrainian side wants to see Turkish companies as the partners in this project. “Ideally, I would like to see in this consortium investors, consumers, transit companies, major players in the world market, which are less dependent on the monopoly companies. That would be an ideal model of the LNG regasification plant construction consortium. It should include partners from the US, Europe, the Turkish investors and, of course, the partners from the Caspian region,” he concluded.
“The first gas is likely to come from outside the Black Sea (Qatar, the US and North African countries are seen as possible alternative gas sources), for construction of the gas liquefaction plant in Azerbaijan will take more time than the LNG regasification plant construction in Ukraine,” the LNG regasification plant project manager Vitalii Demianiuk told The Day.
More gas sources are exactly what we need now, because today the country is addicted to its sole energy supplier Russia.
