Moravia - There will be a new major gas pipeline on the territory of the Czech Republic. The 262-kilometer-long pipe will be called "Moravia", after the Czech region in which it will be located, and will connect the southern and northern parts of Central Europe.
Net4Gas, an operator of key gas pipelines in the Czech Republic, is expected to have invested EUR 400mil in the project once it is finished. Net4Gas is a member of the RWE group.
The project is due to be started in 2015 and finished two years later.
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The Moravia pipeline will form part of the North-South connection designed to reduce the dependency of Central Europe on Russia's gas deliveries. In the south, the Moravia will connect with a pipeline that ends at Austria's Baumgarten, Central Europe's key transit point for gas supplies. When it becomes operable in 2017, the planned Nabucco pipeline will transport gas from the Caspian sea and Middle East to Baumgarten.
In the north, the Moravia pipeline will enable the Czech Republic to import gas from Poland's transit station near Szczecin.
In addition, the Moravia pipeline will enhance the capacity of the Czech Republic's gas transport infrastructure, said Net4Gas' spokesperson Milan Řepka. The current gas pipeline system is no longer sufficient to satisfy the energy requirements of the industrial production in Ostrava, Northern Moravia. Also, it does not permit a construction of gas power stations in Northern and Central Moravia.
Net4Gas operates 3,640 kilometers of gas pipelines in the Czech Republic.
Currently, the firm's largest project in the Czech Republic is a gas pipeline called Gazela, which will connect the Czech Republic with Nord Stream, an international pipeline currently under construction. Nord Stream will transport Russia's gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea.
