For much of the past decade, Europe's energy standoff with Russia has been embodied in two main projects: the proposed European-led Nabucco pipeline (and its downsized variation, Nabucco West) that would carry 10-31 billion cubic meters of natural gas from anywhere in the region except Russia (including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Iran and Egypt) on to Europe, and the rival Russian-led South Stream pipeline that would cross the Black Sea to carry up to 63 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas to Europe. Turkey — the critical transit state for these similarly ambitious pipeline projects — supported both proposals, claiming it could be a neutral bridge between East and West, while waiting to see which would prove more feasible.
But Turkey's attempt at impartiality eventually ran into complications. The Nabucco project already faced numerous financial, logistical and political obstacles, but these difficulties grew when the European economic crisis began in 2009. By 2013, two projects were left on the table to transport Azerbaijan's natural gas to Europe: the downsized Nabucco West project, which would run 1,300 kilometers (roughly 800 miles) from Turkey to Central Europe carrying 23 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and the much more economically feasible Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP, which would run 500 kilometers from Turkey across the Balkans to Italy. The TAP would supply 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II field. In the end, the consortium of energy companies developing the Shah Deniz II field in the Caspian basin — including BP, Total and Azerbaijan's state-owned SOCAR — chose the TAP, abandoning Nabucco altogether.
Economic considerations naturally factored heavily into the decision, but Moscow also had a hand in influencing this outcome. The smaller volume and end consumers of the TAP project were much less threatening to Russia than those in the Nabucco plans, which would target Central Europe on the Russian periphery. It was probably no coincidence that just prior to the decision on the TAP, Russia withdrew its bid for a controlling stake in Greek natural gas transit firm DESFA, allowing SOCAR to win the bid. The move, which followed closer interactions between Moscow and Baku, boosted the TAP's chances and has been followed by other signs of enhanced Russo-Azerbaijani energy cooperation. Russia and Azerbaijan are already in discussions to transport Russian oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (the entire goal of which was to circumvent Russia) and to reverse the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline to send Russian oil to Azerbaijan. A heavier Russian presence in the Caucasus will only reinforce Turkey's energy dependence on Russia.
