POWER September 2011 - 55

THE FUTURE OF NATURAL GAS
pendence on Russia. The implication is that
South Stream is driven by economics.
The scheme's many critics, on the other
hand, see South Stream as simply a way to
subvert Nabucco, the European Commission's
favored southern pipeline. They claim
that Gazprom cannot say where the gas
would come from and that the project would
be uneconomic. For Gazprom to build, coown,
and operate the pipeline sections in EU
7. Finished pipeline. Welding of the last 12-meter-long pipe section in the first of Nord
Stream's two pipelines was completed on May 4, 2011. The twin 48-inch-diameter pipelines
run from Vyborg, Russia, near the Finnish border, under the Baltic Sea to northeast Germany.
Courtesy: Nord Stream
territory would also require extensive exemptions
from EU competition law.
Nabucco, in contrast, really would reduce
dependence on Russia by allowing the Caspian
region, Egypt, and the Middle East to export directly
to Turkey and the EU. Nabucco would run
for 2,512 miles from eastern Turkey to Austria,
with a capacity of 1.094 Tcf per year. The current
partners are OMV (Austria), MOL (Hungary),
Transgaz (Romania), Bulgargaz (Bulgaria),
BOTAS (Turkey), and RWE (Germany). It is
scheduled for start-up in 2017.
Only Azerbaijan has so far signed a contract
to supply gas to Nabucco; other potential suppliers
are Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, and Egypt.
Critics say that the project will be uneconomic
without Iran's participation, and that increasing
availability of LNG threatens the viability of all
long-distance pipelines.
Nabucco would likely be the first pipeline in
the Southern Gas Corridor, a European Commission
proposal to bring 2.118 to 4.238 Tcf of
non-Russian gas to the EU. Other large pipelines
proposed for the Southern Corridor are White
Stream (from Georgia to Ukraine, Bulgaria, and
central Europe), ITGI (Interconnector TurkeyGreece-Italy),
and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline
(Greece, Albania, and Italy).
Shale Gas Hits the News
Given the cost and political complexity of
trans-European pipelines, it's no surprise that
the discovery of unconventional gas reserves
closer to home has generated excitement.
As Table 1 shows, according to EIA figures,
Europe's proven shale gas resources (639 Tcf)
are comparable to those of the U.S. (827 Tcf)
and, surprisingly, are more than three times
the size of proven European conventional reserves.
The EIA's estimate of all proven natural
gas resources (including shale gas) in the
U.S. is 2,552 Tcf. The amount of proven conventional
gas reserves in the U.S. (1,725 Tcf)
is almost an order of magnitude larger than the
EU's reserves outside Russia (186 Tcf).
Most regions of the EU have some shale
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gas. Poland and France have very large resources,
while Germany fares relatively
badly. Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey, which
have little or no conventional gas, do have respectable
shale gas reserves.
A report published in May by the EuroG+H
Schallschutz GmbH
Buergermeister-Gruenzweig-Str. 1 | 67059 Ludwigshafen | Germany | Tel. +49 621 502-525 | Fax +49 621 502-593
www.guh-schallschutz.de | www.gruppe-guh.de | info@guh-schallschutz.de
pean Centre for Energy and Resource Security
(EUCERS) at King's College London
estimates total recoverable reserves of unconventional
gas in Europe at 1,165 to 1,342
Tcf: 530 Tcf of shale gas (slightly less than
the EIA estimate shown in Table 1), 424 Tcf
of tight gas (gas invery tight underground
formations), and 283 Tcf of coal bed methane
gas. This compares with total EU conventional
gas reserves of 85.5 Tcf, the report
says (although the EIA figures are double
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POWER September 2011

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