It is interesting to see that the UK is not the only nation grappling with the problem of providing enough gas for its people.
I was fascinated to read a Reuters report that Albania, once the world’s most isolated country, is now linking up with a number of states to solve their energy problems.
On Wednesday this week it became the first host government to start talks with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), aimed at transporting Caspian gas from Azerbaijan to Italy through Greece and Albania.
The TAP consortium, Norway’s Statoil, Germany’s E.ON Rurhgas and Swiss EGL, aims to build a 1.5 billion euro pipeline that would carry 10 billion cubic metres of Caspian gas a year along a 520-kilometre route.
Albania's Economy, Trade and Energy Minister Nasip Naço, pictured below, said the pipeline would play a key role in helping the energy-starved Balkan country.
The TAP project so far lacks intergovernmental approval between the three countries it would pass through, although it was included in an agreement signed in 2009 between Italy and Albania.
Construction would take three years and TAP is expected to make its final investment decision in 2013, in line with the schedule of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II gas field.
Reuters added that security of supply is a pressing issue for nations in southeast Europe, which were hit hard by a dispute between Ukraine and Russia in the winter of 2009 that cut off deliveries amid freezing temperatures.
To find out more about life in Albania read God's Secret Listener, published by Lion/Hudson/Monarch of Oxford.
Signed copies can be bought at the special Christmas price of £7 including postage in the UK by emailing John@jbutterworth.plus.com
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