Photo Gallery In the Pipeline
The most recent conflict between Moscow and Kiev over natural gas supplies has reignited the controversy over new transit routes. Here, workers weld pipes during a connection ceremony for a new gas pipeline in Ukhta, Russia. Ukhta is one of the transit points for the planned Nord Stream pipeline.
Read the article: Europe's Pipeline War .
The Gazprom-led Nord Stream consortium is planning to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea, while a rival consortium is working on the Nabucco pipeline which will pass through Turkey. Here, a worker checks a pipeline in Siberia.
The Nord Stream project is highly controversial. Baltic states such as Sweden are worried about increasing Russian influence in the region. Here, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin talks with the head of Russian gas giant Gazprom Alexei Miller at Gazprom headquarters.
Gas reserves in Turkmenistan, a desert country on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, are especially hotly contested. Jürgen Großmann, the chairman of Germany's second-largest energy company, RWE, which is part of the Nabucco project, met with Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov (shown here) in January to attempt to win his support for the Nabucco pipeline.
The Central European Gas Hub in Baumgarten, Austria: It is not clear which of the competing pipeline projects will supply Europe with its gas in the future.
