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Hungarian FM calls for advances in regional energy security

Xinhua, March 20, 2015 Adjust font size:

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto warned on Thursday that unless the Central and Southeast European region improved its energy security it would find itself facing major problems in both security and competitiveness.

Szijjarto was addressing a news conference on the sidelines of an international meeting called "Energy Security of Central and South Eastern Europe" hosted by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary.

The region needs to be able to obtain energy from as many sources as possible and along as many routes as possible, he said. Russia, he added, plays an important role in the regional energy supply, and it will continue to do so.

He called infrastructural investments vital, citing construction of a terminal on Krk Island in Croatia where liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries by ship will be possible. He also called for the interconnector two-way pipeline between Hungary and Slovakia to begin operation.

Gas coming from Azerbaijan would truly diversify the supply, Szijjarto added. He supported the idea of a pipeline between Turkey and Central Europe to transport Russian gas to replace the defunct South Stream pipeline plan, but warned that no single project should be exclusive.

Amos Hochstein, Chief of the Bureau of Energy Resources within the United States' State Department, who attended the conference, voiced his support for the pipeline transporting gas from the Shah Deniz field of Azerbaijan to Turkey, Greece, and Italy, for a pipeline connecting Greece and Bulgaria, and for the port on Krk for LNG.

Russia is unquestionably the biggest supplier of gas to Central and Southeast Europe, Hochstein said. While it obviously cannot be replaced, he added, increasing competition is simple economic reasoning.

Hochstein said that building pipelines to connect Greece and Bulgaria, Bulgaria and Romania, and Romania and Hungary would not be particularly expensive and could be completed rather quickly. So if Greece goes ahead with plans to build a port in Thessaloniki for LNG, the pipeline network could transfer that gas through Central and Southeastern Europe, he said. Endit