Remarks Prepared for Secretary Bodman
It is a great pleasure to be with you to mark the opening of the Turkey-Greece Inter-Connector pipeline.
This extraordinary plan is the 1st link between Azerbaijan and Caspian gas suppliers of Central Asia to European consumers. The pipeline is a significant development, one that builds a critical new energy bridge between the East and West. Its presence marks the beginning of a market expansion leading to diversification for consumers and suppliers - who will all benefit from the resulting competition.
This plan is remarkable in many ways, not the least of which is the technical and financial complexity involved in its construction. Building this pipeline also required regional consensus, complex environmental analyses, and a lengthy and productive dialogue with all of the communities along the entire route.
We congratulate those who have provided the leadership necessary to begin this plan and to bring it to its successful conclusion, including our host, Prime Minister Karamanlis and Prime Minister Erdogan. Without the vision and commitment of those who conceived this pipeline, we would not be here today.
I also want to pay special tribute to the Turkish and Greek people for the cooperation they have shown on this project. This pipeline is a success for the people of both countries as well as for Azerbaijan.
TGI also represents a major advancement for the countries in Southern Europe. It provides a vital new energy supply link that underscores the new ways of doing business in Central Asia, a region full of new energy partners.
Change almost always involves some element of risk. The leaders here today represent the region's new energy partners that understand the best way to achieve long term energy security for their countries is through the establishment of competitive energy markets. And, in my judgment, they are working diligently to bring this about.
This Turkey-Greece Inter-Connector is a critical 1st step in a new energy supply chain; and it comes on line at a critically important time. The European Union is the world's biggest gas import market - and one of the world's fastest growing. It is reasonable to expect that Europe's dependence on energy imports will continue to grow over the next 25 years - meaning that Azerbaijan and the rest of Central Asia is poised to become Europe's newest main source of supply, alongside the North Sea region, Russia, and North Africa.
For Central Asia - and for Europe - this presents a real opportunity, but one that will only be realized through the continued cooperation of all the potential stakeholders. The development of new plans over considerable distances is costly; they will need to be undertaken on a large scale if they are to be commercially viable. New partners - including Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan - need to be brought into negotiations and the EU will need to open up its gas markets to competition.
These are daunting but achievable tasks. The fact that we are all standing here today proves that. Let us leave here today with a firm commitment to move forward towards the creation of a strong and growing coalition of partners dedicated to establishing Central Asia as the next great European energy supplier.
By any definition, today's event is a remarkable accomplishment for the governments and people of Turkey and Greece and for the consortium of private companies that worked to make this dream a reality. I want to again congratulate all those involved.
