Engineering Management Midterm Exam (2007/2008 Semester 2)
Please note that Engineering Management Midterm exam venue is as follows:-
Place: E1-3-9
Time: 20:00-22:00
Date: 21st February 2008
P.S. Sorry for the late announcement. But it was fixed only recently.
Turkey: Nabucco Project
The Nabucco pipeline project makes Turkey an energy terminal and connects Europe to large natural gas reserves of the Caspian, Middle East and Egypt.
The pipeline will be 3,300 kilometers long and cost around five billion euros to complete.
It would be completed by the year 2012. Once it is completed, the pipeline will carry 31 billion cubic meters of gas annually.
Nabucco Project Details
The Nabucco pipeline, or Nabucco Project is a planned natural gas pipeline that will transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. It will run from Erzurum in Turkey to Baumgarten an der March, a major natural gas hub in Austria. Some consider the pipeline as a diversion from the current methods of importing natural gas solely from Russia.
Nabucco could bring gas supplies from Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Egypt and Syria. It will be connected near Erzurum with the Tabriz-Erzurum pipeline, and with the South Caucasus Pipeline, connecting Nabucco Pipeline with the planned Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline. It will run from Erzurum in Turkey to Baumgarten an der March in Austria with total length of 3,300 kilometres (2,050 mi).In early years after completion the deliveries are expected to be between 4.5 and 13 billion cubic meters (bcm) per annum, of which 2 to 8 bcm goes to Baumgarten. Later, approximately half of the capacity is expected to be delivered to Baumgarten and half of the natural gas is to serve the markets en-route. The transmission volume of around 2020 is expected to reach 25.5 to 31 bcm per annum, of which up to 16 bcm goes to Baumgarten.
Construction of pipeline is expected to begin in 2009 and is planned to be finished in 2012. It estimated to cost around 4.6 billion EUR (5.8 billion USD). The company leading the project is OMV from Austria.
The Nabucco project is included in the EU Trans-European Energy Network programme and a feasibility study for the Nabucco pipeline has been performed under an EU project grant. The European Commission Nabucco coordinator is Jozias van Aartsen.
More Details on Nabucco Project
The project is developed by the Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, established in 2004 in Vienna. The shareholders of the company are:
* OMV (Austria)
* MOL (Hungary)
* Transgaz (Romania)
* Bulgargaz (Bulgaria)
* BOTAŞ (Turkey)
* RWE (Germany)
All current shareholders have 16.67% of the shares.
French company Gaz de France was also interested to get a stakes in the pipeline, but was rejected by Turkey.
In future the consortium could include also the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic. Also Kazakhstan has indicated its readiness to join the project.
Alternative to Nabucco Project
Gazprom has proposed an alternative project competing Nabucco Pipeline by constructing a second section of the Blue Stream pipeline beneath the Black Sea to Turkey, and extending this up through Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia to western Hungary.
News About Nabucco Project
Turkish Energy & Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler said Thursday he believed Turkey would complete Nabucco Project successfully as it did with important projects such as BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project) and Shah Sea.
Guler met Jozias Van Aartsen, European Union’s coordinator for natural gas projects in southern Europe, in his office in Ankara.
Guler told reporters Aartsen and he focused on Nabucco Project in their meeting.
“The project is being conducted rapidly. Turkey attaches great importance to this project,” he said.
On the other hand, Aartsen said he would have a meeting with PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan this evening.
Nabucco project is progressing well and Turkey has a great contribution to it, Aartsen said.
Sources for Nabucco Project:
‘Bogus universities’ in the UK
The multi-million pound con has gone on virtually unchecked for seven years. It exploits lax UK Government policy and uses the UK’s most prestigious universities as a front to sell unrecognised and worthless degrees.
Every year 40,000 foreign students come to London to study for a British degree. While many attend famous institutions with worldwide reputations, others are tempted into cheaper backstreet colleges by conmen where they end up paying thousands in fees. But the degrees they get are as dodgy as the professors who hand them out.
BBC’s investigation began with student Sounak Halder who was granted a visa to study for a UK degree at an East London college. In 2006 after seeing an advert for a UK recognised masters degree, Sounak from Kolkata took out a £5,000 loan to come to London to study. He made sure that the college was listed on a British Government website.
He says: “I was happy at that point of time. After that I’d gone to the British Council to check for the check, they also said yes, just check the DFES site. If the college’s name is there it means it’s fine … go for that.”
The college Sounak had chosen was linked to the Irish International University (IIU). It would be the one to award him the Masters degree. But concerns had already been raised in London over the IIU and others.
In fact BBC London discovered that the IIU was already listed on a secret Government blacklist of suspect universities back in 2005.
BBC set up an undercover investigation with their bogus academic, Professor Beeg. Pretending to want to set up his own college in London, he met two men who run Irish International University, Professor Sandhu and Dr Varo.
Within two hours of meeting him, Dr Varo offered BBC’s Professor Beeg a professorship. He said: “You must become attached to a university so we can put you under Irish International University and give you a professorship.”
Varo stated that Irish International was bona fide. He said: “It is not bogus you know, or no existence or anything like that, that’s not true.”
But when BBC London went to the IIU address in Dublin, there was absolutely nothing there. No staff, no faculty, no students, nobody had even heard of a university on the premises.
The Irish International University’s degrees are backed by the Quality Assurance Commission UK (QAC UK) which Professor Sandhu points out is “an independent body that basically maintains the quality whether it’s in Africa or the UK … It’s a private body.”
But when BBC London arrived at the QAC’s office in North London, they found it was a virtual office, just like Dublin.
Students are not the only people being duped. Leading businesswoman Mary Chapman, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute, attended Irish International’s degree ceremony at Oxford University’s Divinity School as a guest of honour.
Irish International’s scam depends on its ability to hire out facilities in Oxford and Cambridge. This lends the outfit credibility, not to mention numerous photo opportunities which it uses to publicise itself to students around the world.
BBC tracked down the Honorary Chancellor of the Irish International University, his Excellency Baron Knowth. It turns out he is no aristocrat; he is in fact Jeffrey Wooller, a chartered accountant from London
He has been a prominent member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He owns a £1.2million townhouse in Kensington as well as a flat in Monte Carlo, where he is a tax exile.
The UK government promises that by 2009 all colleges will have to be accredited if they want to bring overseas students to the UK to learn. It is progress, but not enough to have saved the students who have been conned out of thousands of pounds for dodgy degrees.
BBC
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