By Edith Balazs
Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said countries in central and eastern Europe should join together and create a “triangle” of supply points for natural gas to reduce dependence on fuel from Russia.
“I’m proposing that countries in the region set up a gas supply triangle to boost the diversity and security,” Bajnai said at an energy summit in Budapest today, which was attended by heads of government from countries in the region. “We need to increase the number of independent suppliers.”
Countries in the region, dependent on Russian gas, have repeatedly suffered from fuel shortages because of pricing disputes between Russia and Ukraine, a transit country. Hungary gets about 80 percent of its gas from Russia and supports the European Union-backed Nabucco pipeline aimed at bringing Caspian gas to Europe.
Nabucco would be the eastern tip of a triangle, which would include a planned liquefied natural-gas terminal in Poland in the north and an LNG terminal in Krk, Croatia, in the south, Bajnai said. The plan would secure supply of gas transported in the Baltic and Adriatic seas, he said.
“Our aim is to create a critical mass that can represent its interest more efficiently, a critical mass that simply can’t be passed by or overlooked,” Bajnai said.