For years the giant Nabucco project has dominated the debate about building a crucial gas pipeline from the Caspian region to Europe – but a far more modest plan from BP may have all the right ideas.

Ever since the beginnings of the modern petroleum industry in Azerbaijan in the mid-19th century, the country has, despite being a major oil exporter, also been a net gas importer.

The latest act in the opera that is Eurasian pipeline geopolitics was a so-called informal Caspian summit outside the Kazakh port city of Aktau.

Boyko Nitzov, director of programs at the Council's Patriciu Eurasia Center, was interviewed by Leyla Tagiyeva of Azerbaijan's News.Az on energy security in Europe.

This summer’s dispute over undersea Caspian energy resources between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, as well as Ashgabat’s recently stated intention to bolster its maritime military capabilities, have seemingly thrown Trans-Caspian relations into a tailspin, jeopardizing plans for energy cooperation to supply the strategic Nabucco natural gas pipeline.

Alexandros Petersen, associate director of the Eurasia Energy Center at the Atlantic Council, published an op-ed at the Washington Times.

In the geopolitical duel that is Eurasian pipeline diplomacy, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's August trip to Ankara was meant to be the riposte to July's Nabucco pipeline signing ceremony.

Last month’s euphoria over the European Union’s agreement with Turkey on the Nabucco gas pipeline was perhaps a little premature—Brussels still has a long way to go to reduce its energy dependence from Russia.