How worried will Europe be by the alliance between Gazprom and Nigeria’s Oando?
Russia’s gas monopoly has been courting Nigeria for some time now, making offers to invest in the African country’s sizable gas reserves – which are not only under-exploited as an energy source, but often wasted through flaring around oil production facilities.
In September last year the European Union, increasingly nervous about its members’ reliance on Russian gas, offered Nigeria financial backing to develop a trans-Saharan pipeline to export gas directly to Europe. At the time, energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs admitted last year that the EU had been slow to offer support for the project, but last year’s Georgian conflict had brought the issue to the fore. Some significant European private sector backing for the project was offered by France’s Total in February.
But in June this year Gazprom and Nigeria’s state oil company, NNPC, formed a joint venture (with the unfortunate name Nigaz) that included plans to build a section of that very pipeline.
The new Oando-Gazprom alliance is pretty vague – no numbers were given – but it won’t reassure Brussels much.
Related links:
Gazprom tie-up with Nigerian company (FT, 18/10/09)
Gazprom’s $2.5bn gas deal with Nigeria raises European concerns (FT, 26/06/09)
