Heritage Foundation recommendations

The Heritage Foundation has recommended to the new US administration that it acknowledge more straightforwardly the vital geopolitical importance of the Caucasus and Central Asian regions, as it is seeking to diversify oil and gas production sources and supply routes. One of the leading figures in the Heritage Foundation, Ariel Cohen, thinks that as soon as economic crisis is overcome and oil and gas prices revive the importance of these regions will become very high.

Commenting on the NABUCCO project, Cohen highlighted the attitude towards it in European countries, stressing that the situation in Turkey during the implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was absolutely different to that prevailing nowadays. The NABUCCO pipeline, which would provide EU countries with natural gas from Central Asia and Azerbaijan, would cost around EURO 8 billion and have a maximum capacity of 31 billion cubic metres of gas annually. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Germany are the initial partners, each having an equal share.